Sunscreen Regret

Maya clutched her **iphone** so hard her knuckles turned white, doom-scrolling through Instagram while pretending to be deeply fascinated by something beyond the chain-link fence. The **pool** party was in full swing—literally, with people doing cannonballs and screaming like they'd discovered water for the first time. She'd spent forty-five minutes picking out this swimsuit and approximately three seconds regretting every choice.

"Yo, Maya! You gonna float or what?" Marcus called from the deep end, splashing water in her direction like the human embodiment of chaos theory.

She pulled her bucket **hat** down lower. "I'm good. Someone's gotta guard the snacks."

"Whatever." Marcus turned back to his friends, and Maya's stomach did that familiar twisting thing it did whenever she successfully avoided social interaction but also kind of hated herself for it.

Chloe, who had somehow maintained perfect waterproof mascara despite being in the pool for an hour, hauled herself out and dripped onto the concrete next to Maya's chair. "You missed it. Tyler tried to do a backflip off the diving board and nearly drowned his dignity."

Maya cracked a smile. "Tragic."

"You need to get in there. Life's too short to sit by the snack table pretending you have important emails." Chloe pulled a **vitamin** water from the cooler. "Also, you're literally turning into a raisin from all this sun. SPF 50 or not, that UV doesn't mess around."

The sky, which had been doing a questionable job at being blue all afternoon, suddenly opened up. No warning, no gradual build-just straight-up **lightning** cracked across the sky like someone had taken a photo of the universe and the flash had malfunctioned.

Everyone screamed like they were in a horror movie instead of a suburban backyard.

"POOL'S CLOSED!" Marcus yelled, scrambling out like the water had personally offended him.

Maya found herself standing in the garage with twenty wet, shivering teenagers, all pressed together as summer rain pounded the roof. Someone started laughing. Then someone else. Then it was just this collective moment of ridiculousness, all of them huddled under a single LED bulb, smelling like chlorine and teenage awkwardness.

"So," Marcus said, squeezing water from his shirt. "Who wants to play Mario Kart until the apocalypse ends?"

Maya's phone buzzed in her hand-a text from her mom asking if she was having fun. She typed back: actually yeah and pressed send, then slid into the circle on the garage floor, finally feeling like she'd actually arrived at the party she'd been physically present at for hours.

Sometimes it took a storm to make you realize you weren't actually watching from the sidelines anymore.