Lightning in a Fox Hat

Maya pulled the vintage fedora down lower, hoping it would somehow make her invisible. Or at least less noticeably the girl who'd spent all of freshman year being nobody.

"You look like you're about to rob a train," someone said.

She looked up. It was him—the guy everyone called Fox, allegedly because he was cunning or whatever, but mostly because he had that ginger hair and sharp grin. He'd been in her homeroom since September, and she'd spent approximately eight hundred hours pretending not to stare.

"It's called fashion," Maya shot back, because her actual friend Elena had taught her that confidence was just pretending you knew what you were doing.

Fox laughed. It sounded like actual laughter, not the performative stuff people did at parties. "Fair. But you also look like you'd rather be literally anywhere else."

Outside, lightning cracked the sky open. The party music dipped for a second, everyone paused like the universe was hitting the refresh button on something.

"I'm just not great at," Maya gestured vaguely at everything, "all of this. The performing."

"Same." Fox leaned against the wall beside her. "I mostly come for the snacks. Also, my friend Jordan dragged me here and then immediately abandoned me for someone who's apparently 'the one.'"

"Elena did that to me too."

They stood there in companionable misery while people performed cool around them. Maya thought about how her friend had been giving her weird looks all week, how middle school friendships were apparently supposed to dissolve in high school like toilet paper in rain.

"Your hat," Fox said suddenly, "is slightly crooked."

"It's called aesthetic."

"Sure, aesthetic." He fixed it anyway, fingers brushing her forehead. Maya felt something like lightning in her stomach, which was objectively embarrassing but her body was apparently committed to the bit.

"You know," she said, "I feel like I should be more mortified that you're fixing my hat, but honestly? This is the most normal conversation I've had all night."

"Same." Fox's phone buzzed. He checked it and rolled his eyes. "Jordan says 'the one' just asked for my number. Because I'm apparently the wingman now."

Maya laughed for real this time. "At least your friend's talking to you. Mine's been giving me the cold shoulder since Tuesday."

"Wanna blow this popsicle stand?" Fox nodded toward the door. "There's a diner down the street. They have milkshakes. And significantly less performing."

Maya looked at her friend Elena across the room, surrounded by new people who'd apparently decided she was worth their time. Then she looked at Fox, who was waiting for an answer like he genuinely didn't care which way it went.

"Yes," she said. "Absolutely."

They walked out into the storm-dark parking lot, Maya adjusting her hat, and she thought maybe high school wouldn't be terrible. Not if there were people who got it. Not if there were moments that felt like lightning—sudden, bright, impossible to ignore.