Stormtrooper Summer

The neon green bucket **hat** was supposed to be ironic. That's what Maya had said when she thrust it into my hands at the party. "It's giving festival vibes, Jax. Trust." But standing on the edge of Miller's Creek at midnight, waiting for whatever was supposed to happen with the senior crowd, it just felt like I was wearing a neon sign that said FRESHMAN WITH ZERO CHILL.

"You coming?" Brenner called from where the others were already wading into the **water**, fully clothed, phones raised to capture the moment for stories that would be deleted by morning anyway.

I hesitated. The creek looked wrong tonight — darker somehow, moving in ways that creeks weren't supposed to move. But Maya was already waist-deep, laughing, turning back to look at me with that expression that said I was being exactly the kind of overthinking try-hard she'd been trying to cure me of all summer.

"I can't **bear** watching you stand there calculating social risk for one more second," she yelled, and something about her tone — affectionate frustration, maybe — made my chest feel weirdly tight.

Then the sky ripped open.

Not rain — **lightning**, a single jagged crack that turned everything white and silent at the same time. When thunder followed three seconds later, it shook the ground under my sneakers. Someone screamed. Everyone scrambled for the bank.

I grabbed Maya's arm without thinking and we ran, the stupid hat flying off my head and vanishing into the dark. We didn't stop until we reached the shelter of the old pavilion, chests heaving, soaked through, hair plastered to our faces.

Maya looked at me, really looked at me, for the first time all night. Her mascara was running down her cheeks in dark rivulets. She was shivering. She looked absolutely terrible and suddenly I wanted to take a picture of her, not for any feed, just for me.

"Your hat," she said, and started laughing. "That tragic, amazing hat is probably halfway to the lake by now."

"Yeah," I said. "Tragic loss."

"But you were going to come in." Not a question.

"Yeah." A confession.

She leaned her head against my shoulder. We watched the storm pulse across the horizon, silent and miles off now, beautiful in a way that wouldn't translate to any screen.

"Next time," she said, "we're jumping together. No hesitating. No calculating. No fugitive headwear required."

"Deal," I said, and meant it.

The hat was gone. The night was a wash. But somehow, under the pavilion roof with storm-light flickering in her eyes, I'd found exactly what I hadn't known I was looking for.