Storm Season

The pool was dead silent except for Marco's labored breathing. We'd been doing laps for hours, his weird senior year ritual to impress the varsity coach. I was just the friend who said yes when he asked for a spotter.

"You good, bro?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

Marco hung off the pool edge, chest heaving. "Never better. My arms feel like noodles."

"Literal noodles or metaphorical?"

"Both. Definitely both."

The sky outside the glass walls had been turning that bruised purple color all afternoon. The kind that made your phone blow up with flood warnings andcancelled practice texts. But Marco was stubborn like that—he'd been swimming through storms since we were twelve, like he had something to prove to the universe.

A rumble shook the building's foundation. The overhead lights flickered once.

"We should probably bounce," I said, already grabbing my towel. "Before the weather decides to kill us."

Marco laughed underwater, bubbles rising to the surface. "Since when are you scared of a little rain?"

"Since the weather app said 'seek immediate shelter' but okay."

The pool lights went out first. Then the emergency lights kicked on—red and ominous, turning the water into something that looked like it belonged in a horror movie instead of our high school's aquatic center.

"Cursed," I whispered.

"Dramatic," Marco shot back.

Then came the lightning—not outside, but somewhere CLOSE. The whole building lit up like a flash photograph, this terrible split-second where I could see every detail of Marco's face, the lane lines, the way the water caught light like liquid crystal.

The CRACK followed immediately, shaking the windows in their frames. I'd never been that close to a strike before. My ears rang like someone had set off a grenade.

"You okay?" I called out.

Marco didn't answer.

I scrambled to the pool edge, heart in my throat. "Marco?"

He surfaced at the other end, eyes wide, face drained of color. He wasn't looking at me. He was looking at his hands, holding them up like they belonged to someone else.

"Did you SEE that?" he yelled, and his voice sounded wrong—shaky, electric.

"The lightning? Yeah, it was kind of hard to miss."

"No, the water!" Marco swam over fast, way faster than he should've been able to after three hours of laps. "The lightning hit the pool and I—I FELT it, dude. Like actually felt it. Everything went white and then—I don't know. I felt FAST."

I stared at him. This was the part where I'd make a joke about brain damage, but Marco's eyes were doing this weird thing where they kept darting around, like he was seeing something I couldn't.

"Show me what you mean," I said, instead of calling an ambulance.

Marco pushed off the wall and—no joke, no exaggeration—he sliced through the water like a torpedo. Not fast like an Olympian. Fast like something impossible. He did a lap in the time it would've taken me to blink twice.

He surfaced, grinning like a maniac. "Again."

We stayed there for hours while the storm raged outside, Marco testing his new abilities while I watched, equal parts terrified and amazed. My best friend had been struck by lightning through an indoor pool and come out the other side changed forever.

"So," I said, as the red emergency lights finally faded back to normal fluorescents. "Think the varsity coach is gonna believe this?"

Marco laughed, and it was the same laugh as always, just brighter somehow. "Nah. But you know what?"

"What?"

"I don't think I need to impress him anymore."