The Lightning Strike

Maya's fingers trembled around her iPhone as the notification count climbed past 300. That's what happened when you went viral for faceplanting in the cafeteria — thanks, Tyler. The **lightning** outside flashed through her bedroom window, matching the electricity in her chest.

"You're being dramatic," said Chloe, her best friend since seventh grade, sprawled across Maya's bed with her usual feline grace. Seriously, sometimes Maya swore Chloe was basically a **cat** in human form — all judgment and selective affection.

"Dramatic? Tyler literally dubbed it 'The Maya Matrix Melt.'"

"Okay, that's actually kind of fire." Chloe snorted. "But also, he's such a **bull** sometimes. Remember when he made Jordan cry over that Fortnite game?"

Maya groaned into her pillow. Her phone buzzed again. Another TikTok remix. This was it — her social life, officially deceased. She'd spend senior year known as Cafeteria Fall Girl. The social **pyramid** at Westwood High had just crumbled beneath her, and she was now buried somewhere beneath the basement.

Another lightning crack illuminated the yard across the street. Where was that stupid cat? Mrs. Henderson's tabby had been missing since morning.

"We should go look for him," Maya said, suddenly.

"In this storm?"

"Yes. Because I'd rather chase a cat than stare at my phone while my dignity gets memed into oblivion."

Chloe sighed but grabbed her jacket. "You're impossible."

They dashed through the rain, calling for the tabby. And maybe it was the thunder rumbling like a laugh, or the way Chloe slipped and grabbed Maya's arm to steady herself, or just the sheer absurdity of two teenage girls hunting a cat in a lightning storm while Maya's iPhone buzzed with notifications from people who'd never spoken to her before — but something shifted.

"You know what?" Maya shouted over the thunder. "Let them meme. I fell. It's funny."

Chloe grinned, rain plastering her hair to her face. "Now that? That's the Maya I know."

The cat turned up three hours later, safely asleep in Mrs. Henderson's garage. And sure, Monday at school would be brutal. But as Maya dripped water onto her phone screen, watching another 47 notifications pile up, she found herself laughing.

Whatever. Let them have their memes. She'd survive this fall.