Rip Current

The **cable** snapped inches from my face.

"Whoops," Maya said, grinning like she hadn't almost taken my eye out with a frayed ethernet cord. "That's why we're here, right? To fix this ancient nightmare?"

I nodded, trying to look like I knew what I was doing. Marcus, the school's resident **bull**, had made it his mission to remind everyone daily that I was "that theater kid who couldn't sports his way out of a paper bag." So when Mr. Henderson asked for volunteers to rewire the auditorium for the spring showcase, I'd raised my hand before my brain could process what volunteering actually meant.

Now I was suspended three feet above the stage on a wobbly ladder, surrounded by spiderwebs and dust bunnies, holding a flashlight for Maya Lopez while she wrestled with decades of DIY electrical disasters.

"Hand me the strippers?" she asked.

I paused. "Come again?"

Maya laughed, and I felt my face burn. "Wire strippers, Leo. Damn, you really are innocent." She didn't say it mean, exactly. Just stating facts, like noting the sky was blue or Marcus was a toolbag.

"Right. Sorry."

The work wasn't terrible. Maya was cool — she played bass and had dyed her hair six different colors since freshman year. We talked about playlists and why the drama department never got budget for anything, and for two hours, I forgot about Marcus waiting to body-check me into lockers on Monday.

Then my foot slipped.

I grabbed the first thing I could reach — a sagging section of ceiling tiles — and sent myself and my **water** bottle tumbling. The bottle hit first, exploding across the stage like a lake had materialized from thin air. Maya yelped and jumped back, but I landed hard on my ass, directly in the puddle.

For a second, nobody moved. Then Maya started laughing. Not the cruel laugh from when someone trips in the cafeteria. The genuine, can't-breathe laugh that makes your sides hurt.

"Holy SHIT, Leo!" she gasped. "Ten out of ten, absolutely epic death scene."

I started laughing too. Because really, what else could I do? I was soaking wet, covered in dust, and lying in a stage-light reflection that looked like a shallow grave.

"You good?" Maya asked, extending a hand.

"Yeah," I said, pulling myself up. "Just... humiliated."

"Nah." She wiped a tear from her eye. "You fell with style. Most people would've cried. You took it like a champ."

Monday came too fast. I was at my locker when Marcus shoulder-checked me from behind, sending my books flying. Classic.

"Watch it, theater freak," he sneered.

Normally I'd apologize and scramble to pick everything up. But something about Saturday's stage plunge had shifted something. I'd survived actual death-by-electrical-disaster-and-drowning. What was a locker shove compared to that?

I turned around slowly. "You know, Marcus, if you're trying that hard to get my attention, just say you want to join tech crew. We could use someone strong enough to move equipment."

The hallway went silent. Marcus blinked, clearly not prepared for pushback.

"What?"

"Tech crew," I said, like he was slow. "Saturday's shift. You in?" I didn't wait for an answer. Just collected my books and walked to first period, heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

Behind me, I heard Maya's laugh echo down the hall. "Damn, Leo," she called out. "Teaching him new tricks already?"