Flash Point

The vitamin D pills sat on Maya's bedside table like little promises she kept forgetting to keep. Her mom had bought them after some doctor mentioned deficiency, which apparently explained why Maya was always tired and her skin looked like it had never met the sun.

"You're basically a vampire," Emma had said during lunch, stabbing at her salad. "A pasty, sleep-deprived vampire."

Maya had laughed, but it hadn't reached her eyes. Emma was the kind of friend who made jokes that cut just enough to make you wonder if they were actually jokes at all.

That afternoon, the sky turned that weird green-gray color that meant storms were coming. Maya and Emma sat on Emma's front porch watching the clouds pile up like dirty laundry.

"You ever feel like something big is about to happen?" Emma asked, swinging her legs. "Like, I don't know, everything's been leading up to something."

Maya looked at her friend — really looked at her. Emma with her perfect hair and effortless everything, always saying deep things that made Maya feel twelve years old and awkward.

"I guess," Maya said. "I think I'm just waiting for something to change."

"Everything changes," Emma said quietly. "That's the problem."

The first lightning strike cracked the sky open — a jagged white scar against the darkness, close enough that Maya's hair stood up. Thunder shook the porch beneath their feet.

"Did you see that?" Maya breathed, her heart racing. "That was insane."

Emma wasn't looking at the storm. She was looking at Maya, and her expression had changed into something Maya had never seen before.

"I'm moving," Emma said. "After graduation. My dad got transferred to Chicago."

The second lightning strike illuminated Emma's face, and Maya saw the tears she hadn't noticed before. Suddenly everything made sense — the weird mood, the deep questions, the way Emma had been looking at her like she was trying to memorize something.

"Oh," Maya said, and it was such a small word for something so big.

"I wanted to tell you," Emma said. "I just... I didn't know how."

Another flash of lightning, and they were both crying now, storm water on their faces and real tears mixing together, electric and terrible and honest.

"It's okay," Maya said, even though it wasn't. "It's going to be okay."

Later that night, Maya finally took one of the vitamin D pills her mom had bought. She swallowed it dry, thinking about how sometimes the things you need to survive come from outside you, and sometimes you have to find them yourself, and sometimes — just sometimes — storms are exactly what you need to see what's been right in front of you the whole time.