Green Lightning Strike
Maya's phone lit up the dark kitchen. *Party at Jake's. You coming?* From Chloe, who'd barely spoken to her since seventh grade.
Maya stared at her reflection in the window. Same frizzy hair. Same oversized hoodie. Same girl who'd spent the entire eighth grade watching TikToks about glow-ups while remaining tragically the same.
*Spinach.* That was the answer, obviously. The smoothie her gym-obsessed dad swore by would fix everything. Energy! Clarity! The kind of radiant health that made people popular by default.
She threw spinach, banana, and something suspiciously expired into the blender. Thunder cracked overhead as she hit the button.
Nothing happened.
"Seriously?" The power had been flickering all evening, but NOW? Of course the universe would choose this moment to betray her.
A knock at the back door. Alex, her actual friend, the one who'd come over every Friday since they were six, drenched from the sudden storm.
"Your parents are at your aunt's, right? Power's out at my place, and my mom's freaking about the basement flooding."
"Yeah, come in." Maya sighed. "But I'm currently having a crisis."
"What kind?"
"Existential. Also, I just tried to make a spinach smoothie as a personality transplant and the power died."
Alex burst out laughing. "First of all, you don't need a personality transplant. Second, that's the grossest thing I've ever heard."
"It was going to make me glow up!"
"Maya, you're fine. You're great. Also, that smoothie would have tasted like lawn." Alex flopped onto the couch. "Wanna play cards while we wait for the power?"
Lightning flashed, illuminating everything in a harsh white glow — Maya's unfinished smoothie, her worried face, Alex's genuine grin. And suddenly it hit her: she'd been trying to become someone else for someone who didn't care, while ignoring the person who'd always been there.
"Actually," Maya said, "screw Jake's party. Let's wait out the storm."
"Good choice," Alex said. "But we're never speaking of the spinach incident again."
"Deal."