Static at the Surface

Maya pressed her phone against the locker door, heart hammering like she'd just finished a suicide sprint in gym. Someone had posted in the sophomore group chat: *I think someone's spying on us during lunch. Taking notes? Weird vibes.*

She deleted the screenshot of their group project ideas. She wasn't a creep. She was just terrified of saying the wrong thing, so she observed instead. Stupid. So stupid.

"Yo, Maya!"

Kyle's voice cut through her spiral. He wasbeckoning from the pool's edge, water dripping from his hair like he was some kind of merman quarterback. "We're doing the human pyramid for TikTok. You in?"

The popular crew. The ones she'd been "studying" because she didn't know how to just... exist with them.

"I'm good," she called back, but her voice cracked.

"Don't be weird," Chloe called from the pool, already arranging people. "We need a base layer. You're solid."

Solid. That was new.

Maya toeled off her flip-flops. The pyramid thing was ridiculous—everyone stacked in the pool, laughing and shoving and half-drowning each other for content. She slid into the water, cool against her skin, and took her position at the bottom. Hands grasped her shoulders. Someone's feet pressed into her back. This was fine. This was normal.

Then Kyle climbed up two levels and extended a hand down. "Trust fall, bro. I got you."

She grasped his wrist. He pulled, and for three seconds she was suspended above the water, part of something towering and temporary and ridiculous, and she was laughing—actually laughing—when the sky cracked open.

Lightning splintered across the horizon like God's camera flash.

"SCATTER!" someone screamed, and the whole pyramid collapsed into a glorious, chaotic explosion of limbs and water. Maya surfaced sputtering, chlorine up her nose, everyone cackling and rushing toward the cabana.

Kyle was still beside her, shaking water from his hair. "You screamed like a little kid," he grinned.

"I did NOT."

"You absolutely did." He bumped her shoulder with his. "Same time tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Maya said, and she didn't take a photo, didn't screenshot the moment, didn't overthink it. "Same time."

The screenshot on her phone was gone anyway. She didn't need to spy from the edges anymore. She was in the picture now, messy and awkward and real.