Static in the Air

Maya's fingers hovered over her **iPhone**, screen glowing in the dark bathroom of what was supposed to be the party of the year. Outside, muffled bass thumped against the door, but inside, she was practically hyperventilating.

Again.

Her **cat**, Barnaby — who'd somehow escaped her house and followed her to Tyler's because apparently even animals have social anxiety — nudged her ankle with his head. He purred like a tiny motor, grounding her. Barnaby didn't care that Maya had spent forty minutes psyching herself up to walk through that door, only to hide in the bathroom five minutes later. He just wanted chin scratches.

"You're better at this than me," she whispered, scratching behind his ears. Her phone buzzed. Another group chat she wasn't replying to. Another story she wasn't part of.

Suddenly, the bathroom window flashed white. A crack of thunder shook the house, and the power died.

Maya froze. Then someone pounded on the door. "Maya? You okay in there?"

It was Jade — the girl she'd been fake-smiling at all year, the one whose authentic laugh she'd been secretly jealous of since seventh grade. The one she actually wanted to talk to but didn't know how.

The darkness felt safer somehow. Like she could just be a voice in the dark instead of the girl who couldn't handle a party.

"Yeah," Maya said, her voice barely steady. "My cat's in here though."

"Your CAT is here?" Jade's voice was delighted. "No way. I love cats."

And then they were sitting on the bathroom floor in the pitch black, only **lightning** illuminating them in strobe-light flashes, passing Barnaby back and forth while the storm raged outside. Jade confessed she'd only come because her mom made her. Maya admitted she'd rather be doing literally anything else. They talked about anime, about how middle school had sucked, about how weird it was that everyone was pretending to be someone they weren't.

"This is better than the party," Jade said.

"Yeah," Maya agreed, surprising herself. "It actually is."

When the lights came back on, they walked out together — not as the cool kids or the quiet kids, just as two people who'd met in the dark. Maya's iPhone stayed in her pocket. Barnaby purred in her arms. And for the first time all night, Maya wasn't hiding.