Static in the Water

The storm crackled overhead, actual lightning splitting the sky in jagged veins, but nobody moved. We were fifteen, which meant we were immortal and stupid. Maya's older brother was supposed to be watching us, but he'd disappeared inside with his girlfriend hours ago.

"You first," said Chloe, who I'd been my best friend since kindergarten, though lately she'd been perfecting the art of making me feel like we'd never actually known each other at all.

"No way, you go."

The pool was dark, this obnoxious in-ground thing Maya's parents had installed last summer, complete with those fancy LED lights that changed colors. Right now they were off, and the water looked like black glass waiting to shatter.

Chicken, I mouthed, because sometimes maturity is optional.

Whatever. Fine.

She dove in, surfacing with this triumphant splash like she'd just won Olympic gold. Her hair plastered to her face like a wet fox, all sleek and pointy and unfairly good at everything. I hated her a little in that moment. Or maybe I hated that I wasn't her.

The front door slammed. Maya's brother stumbled out, half-dressed, radar-locking on us like we'd personally offended him. "Get out of the pool, there's literally a storm—"

But then the power died.

Everything went pitch black except the sky, which kept throwing down these electric veins, illuminating the yard in strobe-light flashes. Maya's brother cursed. Someone screamed—Chloe, maybe, or me, or both of us.

And then I was in the water too.

Not because I wanted to. Not because I'd decided to be brave. But because Chloe grabbed my hand and pulled, and somehow that made it okay, the two of us treading water in the dark while lightning kept painting everything in these freeze-frames of white-blue light. Her skin was cold. My heart was hammering. Maya's brother was yelling something about his phone, about his girlfriend, about how we were all going to get electrocuted.

"We're not going to die," Chloe whispered, and she sounded like she was almost crying, or maybe that was just me projecting. "Promise you won't tell anyone I screamed."

"I was literally screaming too," I said.

"Yeah but you're allowed. You're you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She didn't answer. The power flickered back on, pool lights blaring sudden purple, and Maya's brother looked like he wanted to murder us. We got out, shivering, towels scratchy against our skin, everything weirdly normal again.

But later, wrapped in blankets on Maya's couch watching her brother's Netflix password fail three times, Chloe leaned against my shoulder. Just a little. Like she used to when we were twelve and neither of us knew how complicated things could get.

"Friends?" she whispered, and I knew she meant more than the word.

"Friends," I said, and pretended not to notice she'd been crying in the pool.

Some things you don't have to say out loud. That's the whole point.