Electric Waters

Maya positioned herself on the lounge chair like it was a throne, phone in hand, scrolling through feeds that everyone else had already seen. Sofia was in the pool, doing that thing where she tossed her wet hair back like a shampoo commercial, surrounded by the varsity crowd who'd somehow become her entire personality this summer.

"You coming in or what?" Sofia called, doing a casual backstroke. "Water's perfect."

Maya's mouth opened but her best friend since second grade was already distracted by Tyler's cannonball off the diving board. The splash sent water droplets flying like pixie dust, and everyone laughed at something Maya couldn't hear from her strategic position at the edge of everything.

That's when the sky turned that weird greenish color that means serious business, and suddenly the pool party was a different story. The first jagged spear of lightning cracked open the sky like an egg, and Mrs. Henderson was herding everyone out of the water like frantic sheep.

"Inside, NOW! Everyone grab your stuff and MOVE!"

Chaos. Perfect, beautiful chaos. Maya scrambled toward the pool house, but through the rain-slicked chaos, she spotted Sofia standing near the deep end, phone pressed to her ear, looking smaller than Maya had seen her in months.

"I said I'd be home BEFORE THE STORM, Mom, I'm literally going—" Sofia was shouting over thunder that rattled the backyard fence.

Another lightning flash illuminated everything in stark electric blue, and Maya saw it: the expression on Sofia's face. The same one she used to get when they were eleven and her dad would drink too much at Christmas. The one that meant everything was absolutely not fine.

Maya didn't think. She just moved, grabbing Sofia's arm and practically dragging her toward the pool house as the sky opened up completely.

"My phone—" Sofia started.

"Forget your phone," Maya said, and they were both soaked to the bone and shivering and it was terrible and perfect all at once. "Seriously. You good?"

Sofia looked at her then, really looked at her, for the first time since April. "No," she said, voice cracking. "Actually, I'm really not."

The thunder rattled the pool house windows, but neither of them moved. Maya's oldest friend was crying in the weird half-light of a summer storm, and suddenly the varsity crowd and the social positioning and the months of awkward distance didn't matter.

"Tell me everything," Maya said.

Sofia did, and the storm raged on outside while they sat on the pool house floor, two fourteen-year-olds in soaked clothes, being real friends again like nothing else mattered. Because nothing else did.

The storm passed, eventually. But they stayed inside until Mrs. Henderson knocked, wondering if they wanted to come back for pizza now that the power was back on.

They looked at each other.

"Race you," Sofia said.

Maya grinned. "You're going down, Henderson."