Strikeout in the Rain

Maya regretted everything. The cramped bleacher. The fact that she'd let Chloe talk her into coming to this stupid baseball game. The neon orange snapback that Tyler insisted on wearing—it was doing actual damage to her retinas.

"You're literally vibrating," Chloe whispered, nudging her with an elbow. "Chill. He's just a guy."

"He's not just a guy," Maya hissed back. "He's the guy who sat behind me in bio freshman year and made those ridiculous puns every single day and I never said anything back because my brain turns into static around hot people and—I think I'm having a medical emergency."

"You're fine. You're glowing, actually. In a concerning way." Chloe handed her a lukewarm bottle of water. "Hydrate, disaster lesbian."

The bottom of the seventh. Tyler's team was down by two runs. Maya's anxiety had reached levels that could probably power a small city. Then the sky opened up like the universe was personally done with her.

First came the wind—sudden, violent, whipping her hair across her face. Then the temperature dropped ten degrees in ten seconds. People started grabbing their stuff, heading for cover, but Tyler was still at bat, digging his cleats into the dirt like he could intimidate the weather into submission.

A crack of thunder shook the entire field. Maya flinched so hard she nearly fell off the bleacher.

And then—lightning. A massive, jagged bolt that split the sky directly above the stadium, illuminating everything in this weird purple-white flash. Like a photography studio in the middle of the apocalypse. For one split second, she saw Tyler clearly. He wasn't looking at the pitcher. He was looking directly at her.

The umpire yelled something. The game was suspended. Everyone was running for the concession stand, for their cars, for anywhere that wasn't becoming increasingly storm-trope. Maya stayed frozen, her heart doing something genuinely concerning in her chest.

"Maya!" She turned and he was there, up close, his orange hat dripping wet, water plastering his hair to his forehead. "I was gonna—"

Another crack of thunder. A teacher started yelling for everyone to get inside the school building now.

"Text me?" he shouted over the rain, already backing away, grinning like this was exactly how he'd planned it. "You never gave me your number last year and I've been waiting for—"

"Maya! Move!" Chloe grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the gym.

She looked back once. Tyler stood there in the pouring rain, orange hat held against his chest, making finger guns at her like the absolute dork he was. Her heart did something that felt suspiciously like soaring.

The storm could keep coming. Maya was done hiding.