Storm Front

The cable snapped with a sound like a whip crack, and Maya's Minecraft avatar froze mid-jump.

"You've got to be kidding me," she groaned, dropping her controller. "My mom's gonna kill me if she finds out I pulled the ethernet cable out of the wall."

Across the basement, Liam laughed from his beanbag chair. "Chill, Maya. We'll fix it before she gets home. It's not like she's gonna, like, inspect the cables or something."

Maya flipped him off, but she was smiling. That was the thing about Liam—he made everything feel less catastrophic, even when she was pretty sure she'd just destroyed the internet connection for the entire block.

Outside, thunder rumbled deep and low. The summer storm had been building for hours, the sky turning that weird greenish color that meant tornado weather in the Midwest, even though the weatherman had said it was just gonna be some rain.

"We should probably, like, not be gaming during a thunderstorm anyway," Liam said, finally setting down his controller. "My cousin's friend's house got hit by lightning last summer and their entire smart home system fried. Like, their toaster started talking to them."

"That's not how lightning works, Liam."

"That's how it worked for them!"

They were sitting closer than usual on the couch now, the only light coming from the still-static-y TV screen and the occasional flash of lightning through the basement windows. Maya's heart was doing that thing where it felt too big for her chest, the way it'd been doing for weeks now whenever she and Liam ended up alone together.

"You know what's weird?" Liam said suddenly. "How we've been friends since seventh grade but I feel like I barely know you sometimes."

Maya's stomach did a little flip. "What do you mean?"

He shrugged, looking at his hands. "Like, who are you when you're not being, you know, perfect Maya with the perfect grades and the perfect everything?"

"I'm not—" She stopped herself. "Is that really what you think of me?"

"No." Liam turned to face her, and the lightning flashed again, illuminating his face in stark relief. "I think you're scared."

The words hit her like actual, physical force. Because he wasn't wrong.

"Of what?" she whispered, even though she already knew.

"Of being messy. Of failing. Of..." He gestured between them. "This."

A crash of thunder shook the house. And then they were both moving, not really deciding, just letting themselves be pulled toward each other like gravity had suddenly reversed. His lips tasted like Mountain Dew and possibility, like every almost-moment from the past three years finally clicking into place.

They broke apart when the power went out completely, plunging them into darkness except for the storm outside. Maya could hear her own heart pounding, could feel the water leaking through the basement ceiling somewhere, cold and real and grounding.

"Wow," Liam breathed into the darkness.

"Yeah."

"Your mom's definitely gonna notice the cable situation now."

Maya laughed, and it felt like coming up for air after being underwater too long. "Let her notice. I think I'm done being perfect anyway."