Static in the Water

The rooftop pool was supposed to be empty at 2 AM. That was kind of the whole point.

"You coming in or what?" Marco called from the deep end, doing that thing where he splashed water with his chin like a total dork. Thunder rumbled somewhere distant, but neither of us cared. We'd been best friends since seventh grade, and somehow at sixteen, everything felt different now. His swimming trunks hung lower. His laugh hit different in my chest.

"Coming," I said, but my feet stayed planted on the concrete edge.

The truth was, I'd been hiding something all summer. Every time we hung out, every stupid TikTok we watched side by side on his bed, every time his arm brushed mine—I felt like I was holding my breath underwater.

Then lightning cracked the sky open, and everything turned white for a second.

A cat yowled from the HVAC unit above us—a scrawny black thing with one ear missing, hunched like it owned the rooftop. It hissed at the storm.

"Yo, what is that?" Marco paddled over to the wall, water dripping down his face. He looked at me, then at the cat. "You scared, aren't you?"

"No." My voice cracked. Classic.

"You're scared of the storm." He grinned. "You're scared of the lightning."

"Shut up."

"You're scared of everything lately." Marco climbed out of the pool, dripping wet, and stood in front of me. The cat watched us like a judgmental little gargoyle. "What's actually going on with you?"

Another flash of lightning illuminated everything—the pool, the cat, Marco's concerned face, the way his hair stuck up in wet spikes. The thunder followed instantly, shaking the rooftop.

I could've played it off. Could've made a joke. Could've jumped in the water and splashed him like nothing happened.

Instead I said: "I think I like you. Like, like-like you."

The cat hissed at nothing. Marco's expression didn't change.

"Oh," he said.

Then: "Oh."

Then, softer: "Yeah. Me too."

We stood there while the storm moved over us, while the cat vanished into the shadows like it was never real at all, while the water lapped against the pool's edge in the darkness, while everything shifted and nothing did, all at once.