Electric Waters

Maya stood at the edge of the pool, clutching her solo cup like it was a lifeline. The senior party. Every cool person from Oak Ridge High was here, and she was just a sophomore who'd somehow scored an invite through her cousin Tyler.

'Hey, you gonna swim or just guard the water?'

Maya jumped. Jake Rodriguez stood there, dripping wet, hair plastered to his forehead. Jake. The Jake who'd gotten MVP for soccer twice. The Jake whose smile could power a small city.

'Uh,' Maya managed. 'Yeah. Just. Taking it in.' Smooth. Really smooth.

Her phone buzzed. MOM: Did you take your vitamin D supplement?? It's cloudy today!

Maya groaned silently. Her mother had been on a health kick since June, convinced Maya wasn't getting enough sunlight because she 'spent too much time inside reading.' Which, okay, fair.

'Maya!' Tyler appeared, throwing an arm around her shoulders. 'There's someone I want you to meet.'

'Can it wait?' she hissed. 'I'm having a moment.'

'Bro, you've been having a moment for forty-five minutes.'

Suddenly, the sky darkened. A crack of thunder shook the ground, and lightning splintered across the sky like it was breaking through glass. Everyone shrieked and scrambled toward the patio cover.

'Great,' someone muttered. 'Party's over.'

But under the covered patio, something shifted. People stopped pretending to be cool. No one could see who was swimming in the shallow end anymore. Maya found herself squished between Jake and a girl she'd seen in AP Bio, everyone watching the rain pound the pool surface, sending up silver spray like tiny fireworks.

'My mom made me bring this spinach dip,' Jake said, holding up a Tupperware. 'It's actually not terrible if you don't think about how green it is.'

Maya laughed. 'My mom's been forcing vitamin supplements on me all summer.'

'Dude, same,' Jake said. 'She thinks I'm malnourished because I'm vegetarian.'

'Me too,' the girl from AP Bio said. 'I started sneaking them into the trash.'

They all exchanged looks. Then they were laughing, really laughing, heads thrown back, the storm raging around them, the pool churning below. And for the first time all night, Maya wasn't worried about whether she was cool enough. She was just here, in the electric dark, eating weird spinach dip with people she'd thought were untouchable.

Lightning flashed again, illuminating Jake's smile as he passed her a chip. 'You're funny, Maya.'

Maybe she'd tell her mom about the lightning and the spinach and the pool party where everything changed. Or maybe she'd keep this secret, this tiny vitamin for her soul, all hers.