Electric at the Deep End

The chlorine burned my eyes, but I wouldn't get out. Not yet. Not when **lightning** kept cracking across the summer sky, illuminating everything and nothing at the same time.

Marcus's pool party was supposed to be the social event of the season, but I'd spent the last hour doing an excellent impression of a pool wallflower. I was fine with it. Really. Being on the swim team didn't mean you had to be社交 at every single **pool** gathering.

"Hey!"

I jumped and almost slipped under the water. Maya stood there holding a paper plate with what looked like fruit salad.

"You okay? You've been staring at the deep end like it holds the secrets of the universe."

"Just thinking," I said, which was true enough. I was thinking about how **swimming** laps felt so much easier than making conversation with people I barely knew.

"Try this." She held out a fork. "My mom's obsessed with exotic fruits now. It's **papaya**."

I'd never had papaya before. I took the bite, expecting something sweet. Instead, it was this weird musky-sweet thing that made my face wrinkle.

Maya laughed. "Your face! Oh my god, your face."

"It's... interesting?" I managed, and she laughed harder.

"Interesting is one word for it." She sat down on the edge, dangling her feet in the water. "I'm Maya, by the way. We have English together."

"Javier," I said, and then the conversation actually started. Like, really started. We talked about how papaya tasted like depression and sunshine at the same time. About how Ms. Henderson gave way too much homework. About how we both kind of hated pool parties but always came anyway because that's what you did when you were fifteen.

Then the sky opened up.

Literally opened up—a crack of **lightning** so close it made the hairs on my arms stand up, followed immediately by thunder that rattled my chest. Everyone screamed and scrambled toward the house, but Maya grabbed my arm.

"Race you!"

Before I could process what was happening, she'd pushed off the wall, slicing through the water toward the shallow end. Something in me woke up—this electric feeling, like I'd been sleepwalking through the party until now.

I dove after her.

We emerged from the pool gasping and dripping, running through the rain toward Marcus's back door, laughing like idiots. The lightning flashed again, turning her silhouette into something dramatic and alive and absolutely present.

"Papaya next time," she said breathlessly as we reached the porch. "Maybe mango? Something normal people actually eat."

"Deal," I said, and I meant it.

The party moved inside, soggy and chaotic, but for the first time all night, I wasn't thinking about **swimming** laps or being socially awkward or any of the stuff that usually lived in my head. I was just there. Electric, like the storm. Alive, like the rain.

Sometimes the best moments aren't the ones you plan. They're the ones that find you when you're busy holding up the wall, waiting for something—anything—to happen.