Electric Summer Night

Maya tugged at her frizzy **hair**, already regretting letting Sarah talk her into coming. The backyard pool party was packed — at least fifty people from school, most of whom she'd never actually spoken to. She stood near the snack table, clutching her **iphone** like a lifeline, scrolling through absolutely nothing just to look busy.

"Hey!" Sarah materialized beside her, grabbing her arm. "Stop lurking. Come meet Jake's cousin from California. He's literally obsessed with that band you like."

"I'm good," Maya said, but Sarah was already dragging her across the patio.

That's when the first flash of **lightning** split the sky, followed instantly by thunder that shook the ground. Everyone screamed and laughed, half the party running toward the covered porch while the other half — the brave, stupid ones — jumped into the **pool**.

"GET OUT OF THE WATER!" someone yelled. "That's literally how people die!"

Maya stood frozen as chaos erupted around her. People were shaking themselves like wet dogs, towels flying everywhere, someone's phone dropping in the grass. In the middle of it all, she locked eyes with Jake's California cousin — some lanky guy with wet hair plastered to his forehead, grinning like this was the best night of his life.

He splashed over to the edge, still in the pool. "You coming in or what?"

"In a thunderstorm?" she called back. "Are you crazy?"

"Live a little, right?" He ducked just as another lightning crack illuminated the whole yard, turning the pool water silver-white for a heartbeat.

Something in Maya shifted. Maybe it was the electricity in the air. Maybe it was that she'd spent sixteen years playing it safe. Maybe she was just tired of watching everyone else live while she stood on the edges.

She kicked off her sandals.

"Maya, NO!" Sarah shrieked, but Maya was already running, diving into the cool water just as the sky opened up and rain came down in sheets. The California cousin high-fived her underwater, and she came up laughing, hair plastered to her face, heart pounding, absolutely terrified and absolutely alive.

Later, wrapped in a towel on the porch, her **friend** Sarah shook her head. "I can't believe you did that. You're literally insane."

Maya looked at her phone — waterlogged, probably ruined, sitting in a bowl of rice on the kitchen counter. "Yeah," she said, watching the storm rage over the neighborhood. "Yeah, I guess I kind of am."