The Papaya Lightning Strike

My life officially peaked at 11:47 PM on a Tuesday when I was caught acting like a total creep.

Okay, let me back up. I was *spying* on Maya—totally normal teenage behavior, right? She lives two houses down, and I'd been strategically positioned at my bedroom window with fake "studying" as cover for weeks. My **dog**, Buster, had developed this annoying habit of barking at literally everything, which was about to ruin everything.

The storm outside was insane. **Lightning** kept flashing like a strobe light at the world's worst party, and I could hear thunder rattling my window frame. Perfect atmosphere, honestly. Atmospheric.

Then Buster bolted.

Like, literally just launched himself through my barely-open door and down the stairs. I panicked—my parents were asleep, Maya was probably awake (I'd seen her light on), and if Buster started barking at her house, I would literally have to move to another country.

I chased him outside into the rain (romantic, right? Not really, mostly just wet and cold) and watched him squeeze through a hole in Maya's fence. Great. Now I had to go retrieve him.

I found him in Maya's backyard, happily chewing on something that had fallen from their weird tropical tree thing. It was a **papaya**. Who even grows papayas in suburban Ohio? I tried grabbing Buster, but he was NOT having it.

That's when the back door opened.

Maya stood there in these oversized pajama pants and a hoodie that looked way too cozy. She was holding her phone—probably on a **cable** because the storm had killed their Wi-Fi earlier.

"Is that your dog?" she asked. And then, because my life is a comedy, she added, "He's eating my papaya."

"I'm so sorry," I said. "He's usually—"

"It's fine," she laughed, and wow, her laugh in person? Way better than through a window. "My dad grows them. He thinks he's some kind of tropical farmer. It's kind of embarrassing, honestly."

I finally wrangled Buster away from the papaya. We stood there for a second, me soaking wet, holding my squirming dog, while she leaned against her door frame. **Lightning** flashed again, illuminating everything in this weird, perfect moment.

"You want to come in?" she asked. "My dad has, like, twenty more papayas. We could make smoothies. If you're not busy... spying?"

I froze. She knew. She'd KNOWN.

"I wasn't—"

"It's okay," she said, smiling. "Your window's kinda obvious. Anyway, you coming in or not?"

Buster chose that moment to shake rainwater all over both of us.

Maya laughed. "Yeah, come inside."

So that's the story of how I got caught being a creep, destroyed my crush's papaya, and somehow ended up with her number anyway. Sometimes the universe works in mysterious ways. Or sometimes you just get lucky with lightning and papayas and a dog with terrible boundaries.