Thunder in My Bones

The lightning crackled across the sky like the broken neon sign outside the 7-Eleven where we'd all agreed to meet. Maya's text had said "party starts at 9 lol" but here I was, standing alone at 9:15, watching my reflection in the glass door and wondering if my nervous energy was visible from space.

"You're not gonna go in there, are you?" I whispered to myself. But then I thought of Luna, my cat back home, who'd spent sixteen years afraid of her own shadow until last week when she'd finally started sleeping on my bed instead of under it. If Luna could brave the open world, so could I.

Inside, the air smelled like cheap body spray and desperation. Someone had set up a goldfish station—those little plastic bags with a single fish swimming in circles, waiting to be won by someone who'd forget to feed it within three days. The irony wasn't lost on me.

Then I saw him. Tyler, in the corner, wearing the school bear mascot head like it was the most normal thing in the world. The mascot costume nobody wanted to wear this year because last year's mascot had fallen off the bleachers during homecoming and broken both arms.

Tyler caught me staring. He lifted the bear head slightly, revealing that same lopsided grin I'd been crushing on since September. "Wanna trade places?" he mouthed. "I think I'm about to suffocate in here."

And that's when the lightning struck—not outside, but inside me. All those months of watching him from across the cafeteria, memorizing his schedule, liking every post but never commenting... maybe I was done being the goldfish in the bag.

I marched over there like I was running a race I'd already won. "Only if you promise not to tell anyone I was the bear," I said, slipping on the giant head.

Tyler laughed—actually laughed, like really laughed. "Deal. But you owe me a dance."

"Bears don't dance," I said from inside the costume.

"This one does," he said, and grabbed my paw.

Later, when we were both stuffed in the bear costume together because we refused to take it off even as the party wound down, Tyler whispered, "You know, I've been trying to get you to notice me all year."

The lightning outside had faded to a drizzle, but something else was glowing now. Something real. Something that was just beginning.