Lightning in My Palms

My palms were sweating so much I thought my phone might slip right out of my hand. The beach house party was already in full swing, music thumping through the walls like a second heartbeat, and I was stuck in the kitchen holding a red cup like it contained the answers to the universe instead of lukewarm soda.

"You look like you're about to bear the weight of the world's problems," Maya said, appearing beside me. She was the kind of girl who made everything look effortless—hair perfectly messy, smile that could light up the whole coastline. I'd been crushing on her since seventh grade health class, and she still didn't know my name.

"Just thinking about how everyone else seems to have their life together," I admitted. "Like, they've all got this social cable that connects them, and I'm the only one not plugged in."

Maya laughed, but it wasn't mean. It was the kind that crinkled her eyes. "First of all, that cable you're talking about? It's totally frayed for everyone else too. They're just good at hiding it. Second, want to know what I do when I feel like that?"

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

She led me out to the patio, where palm trees swayed in the gathering wind. The ocean reflected the darkening sky, waves crashing harder than before. A storm was rolling in.

"When everything feels like too much, I come out here and just let myself feel small," she said. "Like, really small. The ocean's huge, the sky's huge, and suddenly my problems don't feel so massive."

A crack of lightning split the sky, illuminating everything in this wild electric blue. For a second, I saw everything differently—Maya's profile against the storm, the nervous energy I'd been carrying all night, the truth that maybe everyone was faking it just as much as I was.

"Did you see that?" she breathed. "Like, actually see it?"

"Yeah," I said. "I really did."

Another flash of lightning, and this time she reached over and squeezed my hand. My palms weren't sweating anymore. The storm that had been raging inside me had found its match outside, and somehow that made everything okay.

"You know," Maya said, as the first drops of rain began to fall, "I think we're all just waiting for someone else to admit they don't know what they're doing either."

We didn't move when the rain started coming down harder. We didn't move when people ran past us, heading back inside. We just stood there as the storm broke around us, lightning turning the world into something new and electric and possible, finally feeling like we belonged to the same cable after all.