The Lightning Strike

Maya's stupid **hat** kept blowing off in the wind. It was this vintage fedora she'd thrifted because she thought it made her look mysterious, but mostly it just made her look like she was trying too hard. She bent down to grab it from the sidewalk—again—and when she straightened up, Jordan was walking past.

"Cool hat," he said, and Maya's stomach did that embarrassing flip-flop thing.

"Thanks," she managed, but the word came out weird. She was still holding the hat, fingers crushing the brim.

They were both heading to the spring fling, the annual dance that Maya had spent three weeks overthinking. She'd even deleted her **iPhone**'s social apps twice that week, trying to curb the pre-event stalking of everyone's outfit posts. (She'd redownloaded them. Obviously.)

"You going to the dance?" Jordan asked, and Maya nodded like her neck was broken.

"Yeah. You?"

"Maybe." He shrugged. "My friends are going to this party at the old museum instead."

The old museum. That's where they kept the Egyptian exhibit, including the famous **sphinx** statue that seniors dared each other to touch at midnight. Maya's older sister swore the statue moved when no one was looking.

"That sounds cooler than the dance," Maya said before she could lose her nerve.

Jordan's face lit up. "Yeah? You wanna come?"

They ended up ditching the fling entirely, sneaking into the museum through a propped door Jordan knew about. The sphinx loomed in the dim exhibit hall, its stone face unreadable. Maya felt electric, like she'd stepped out of her boring, predictable life and into something real.

Then **lightning** flashed through the skylight, and the emergency lights flickered on.

"We should probably go," Jordan said, but he was smiling.

"Yeah," Maya agreed. But they didn't move immediately.

She looked at the sphinx, at Jordan, at her ridiculous crushed hat. For the first time all year, Maya felt exactly like herself—no costume, no performance, no overthinking required. Sometimes the best moments happened when you stopped planning and just let the weirdness happen.