The Lightning Caught Fly

Maya stood at the edge of the make-shift baseball diamond, clutching a faded blue cap she'd grabbed from her brother's room. The crown was too deep, sitting low on her forehead like she was trying to hide.

"You playing, Maya?" Tyler called from the pitcher's mound. Tyler, who'd grown six inches over summer and now had actual jawline. Tyler, who'd never spoken to her before eighth grade ended.

"I'm just... watching," she managed, then immediately regretted how small her voice sounded.

Three weeks into high school and she was still measuring everything against last year's invisible rules. Who sat where at lunch. Which bathrooms were safe. The elaborate taxonomy of who was invisible and who wasn't.

Her phone buzzed - group chat blowing up about Jordan's party afterward. Another thing she wasn't sure she was invited to, officially.

Across the field, a golden retriever puppy bounded through the tall grass like it had never known a leash. Tyler's dog, Buster. The absolute unit of chaos who'd somehow become the school mascot during finals week when he kept wandering into the library and sleeping on everyone's backpacks.

Baserunner rounding third, Tyler wound up and threw something that looked like it might be a strike if you squinted. Maya watched the ball soar toward the makeshift backstop—a rusted chain-link fence someone's dad had erected years ago.

The sky darkened. First one fat drop hit Maya's arm, then another, then the sky opened up like someone had kicked over a bucket.

"Scatter!" someone yelled, and suddenly everyone was sprinting—toward porches, trees, anywhere.

Maya stood frozen as Tyler ran toward her. "You coming?" Then the sky split open—lightning cracked so close she felt the hair on her arms stand up.

"Maya!" He grabbed her hand and they ran, water sluicing through her sneakers, the baseball cap flying off her head.

They dove onto Tyler's porch as another bolt illuminated everything like a flash photograph. Rain sheeted down, thunder shaking the floorboards beneath them.

Then his dog scrambled up the steps, shook himself vigorously, and soaked both of them all over again.

Tyler looked at her—really looked at her—through plastered hair and water droplets. He started laughing, this helpless sound. "So..." he wiped water from his eyes. "Jordan's party might be cancelled."

She exhaled, startled by her own laugh. "Might be."

"You still want to go?" he asked. "If it's happening?"

"If you're going," she said, before she could overthink it.

The corner of his mouth lifted. "I'm going if you're going."

Inside, Tyler's mom appeared with towels. "You two are soaked. And you—" she pointed at Maya, "you left your brother's cap in the storm."

Three weeks of measuring invisible rules, of watching from edges, of waiting for permission that wasn't coming.

Maya looked at Tyler, who was wringing out his shirt. Then she looked at the rain, still pouring like the sky had something to say and was finally saying it.

"I think I'll get a new one," she said. "Something that fits."

Outside, another lightning bolt, but she didn't flinch.