Lightning in the Chlorine

My phone buzzed at 4:45 AM. **Zombie** mode activated.

"You up?" Maya's text read. "Coach said lightning practice."

I groaned, dragged myself out of bed, and grabbed the bag with my **orange** competitive swimsuit—the one Mom said made me look like a traffic cone, but whatever. It was the only clean one.

At the pool, Maya already had her goggles on. "Rumor's spreading," she said, doing that thing where she talks fast when she's nervous. "Jake from English saw your Insta story about the meet."

My stomach did that thing where it simultaneously dropped and floated. Jake. With the messy hair and the tendency to quote memes at inappropriate times.

"Cool," I said, trying to sound chill. "Whatever."

We jumped in. The water shocked me awake, or maybe it was just the terror of 5 AM **swimming** practice with a coach who thought 'fun' was doing butterfly until your arms fell off.

Halfway through my third lap, something shifted. The sky outside the windows turned that weird purple-green color that means something's about to happen. Then—CRACK.

**Lightning** hit somewhere close. The whole pool flickered, weird blue-green shadows dancing across the bottom.

"EVERYONE OUT NOW!" Coach yelled.

We scrambled out, shivering, grabbing towels. Jake was there by the snack machines, dripping wet from his own practice, wearing shorts that were somehow still dry.

"Crazy storm," he said, looking at me. At my orange swimsuit. At me.

"Yeah," I said. My voice came out weird. "Crazy."

"Your suit," he said, grinning. "It's... really orange."

"Traffic cone vibes, I know."

"No," he said. "It's cool. Like, really bright."

He didn't leave. We stood there as the storm raged outside, both pretending we weren't freezing, both not saying anything about the meet this weekend or how maybe he'd come watch.

Later, Maya would make dramatic hand gestures and whisper "OMG HE LIKES YOU" in that way she does. But in that moment, with lightning flashing outside and chlorine in my nose and Jake standing there looking at my orange swimsuit like it was something special, I didn't feel like a zombie anymore.

I felt awake.