Static Between Friends

Maya sat on the edge of the bathtub, phone clutched in her hand like a lifeline. The bathroom was the only quiet place at Jordan's party, and she'd been hiding here for approximately forever.

"You good in there?" Alex called through the door. His voice sounded muffled, worried.

"Yeah. Just thinking."

"About him?" The way Alex said 'him' — like it was a problem to be solved, or maybe just the world's most annoying joke — made Maya's chest tight.

"Whatever. Come in."

Alex opened the door and slid down to sit beside her. He smelled like chlorine and expensive cologne, and his hair was wet from the pool outside. A stray **cat** had somehow wandered into Jordan's house earlier and was now curled up on the bathroom sink, watching them with judgmental yellow eyes. Downstairs, someone's **dog** — a golden retriever with zero chill — was definitely still barking at nothing.

"He's not into me," Maya said finally. "He's been flirting with literally everyone else all night."

"Or maybe he's nervous," Alex suggested, but Maya could tell he didn't believe it either. That was the thing about Alex — he'd lie to make her feel better, but he was terrible at it.

"Or maybe I'm just not the kind of person people get nervous about," she said, and the words came out sharper than she meant.

"That's not — " Alex started, but then **lightning** flashed through the bathroom window, illuminating his face in this weird, washed-out way. Thunder cracked directly after, shaking the house.

The lights flickered and died. They sat in the sudden darkness, neither of them moving. Maya could hear her own heartbeat, could feel Alex's shoulder pressing against hers. Outside, rain started hammering against the house like it had something to prove.

"Maybe this is the universe's way of telling us to stop overthinking everything," Alex said quietly.

"Or maybe it's just a storm," Maya said, but she was smiling now.

"Same thing."

They stayed there as the house grew rowdy downstairs, everyone freaking out about the power going out. The bathroom was becoming their own little world, separate from the party, from Jordan's crush-worthy older brother, from all of it. The cat purred like it had been in on this plan the whole time.

"Hey," Alex said after a long silence. "You know who I'd want to be stuck in a dark bathroom with during a thunderstorm?"

Maya's heart did this stupid little skip thing. "Who?"

"My actual best friend. But she's busy being sad about some guy who doesn't deserve five seconds of her brain space."

Maya laughed, feeling something shift inside her chest — light, easy, like the storm had cleared out something she hadn't realized was weighing her down. "You're the worst."

"I know." Alex stood up, extending a hand. "Come on. Let's go downstairs and own this power outage."

They walked out together, and Maya didn't think about Jordan's brother at all. She just thought about how **water** from the pool was still dripping from Alex's hair onto her shoulder, cold and perfect, and how sometimes the universe really did know what it was doing.