The Lightning Run

Maya had perfected the art of being invisible. Not like, superpower invisible—more like, if-you-sit-still-enough-in-the-back-of-the-classroom-no-one-remembers-you're-there invisible. It was basically a full-time job.

Then Jason Chen had to go and ruin everything by being stupidly attractive and suspiciously popular.

It started accidentally—okay, maybe slightly less accidentally when she "happened" to walk past his table at lunch three times in one week. But in her defense, she was just observing the ecosystem. Like a scientist. Or a spy. Definitely not a creep.

"You're basically spying on him at this point," her best friend Leo had pointed out the previous day while they sat on her bedroom floor, surrounded by half-finished chemistry homework. "It's giving 'stalker energy,' and not in the cute way."

"I'm gathering data," Maya had insisted, though her face burned. "There's a difference."

Now she was literally hiding behind a library bookshelf, watching Jason laugh with his friends like he didn't just crack up about something that definitely wasn't that funny. She should turn around. She should walk away. She should stop being that person who lurked.

Thunder rattled the windows—storm weather, perfect for her terrible life choices.

Then lightning flashed, and in that split second of brightness, everything went completely sideways. Jason's eyes locked with hers through the gap in the books. He smiled. Actually smiled. Not the polite one he gave everyone.

She bolted. Straight up running toward the exit like she'd just committed a crime.

"Wait! Maya!"

She skidded to a stop in the hallway, heart hammering like she'd just finished a mile in gym class. Which she absolutely would not have done, because gym class was basically a constitutional violation.

Jason caught up, slightly out of breath. "I've been trying to talk to you for like, two weeks."

"What?"

"Since you saved my chem lab from falling off the table? You practically vanished."

Oh.

OH.

"I thought... I thought you wouldn't notice."

Jason laughed, and it was different from the cafeteria laughs. Realer. "I notice everything about you. That's kinda why I've been waiting for you to stop running away from me."

Maya's face was definitely doing something unfortunate. "Oh my god, I'm so embarrassed."

"Don't be." He grinned. "Wanna walk to class together? Or are you gonna spy on me from the library again?"

"Shut up," she groaned, but she was smiling too. "Fine. But I'm never living this down."

"Deal." Lightning flashed again, and this time, Maya didn't look away.