Thunder in My Pocket

My phone burned against my thigh — literally hot, like it'd been processing something nuclear for three hours straight. Another notification slid across the screen: 'ur weird' from someone I'd thought was my best friend since seventh grade. Great.

The dog needed walking anyway. Barnaby — this ancient golden retriever mix who moved like he was underwater most of the time — was suddenly hyper, dancing around my legs like he'd scored backstage passes to a Taylor Swift concert. Probably the storm rolling in. The air tasted like ozone and impending homework crisis.

'Fine,' I told him. 'Let's go.'

We started running, which was hilarious because I haven't run voluntarily since gym class freshman year when Mr. Harrison made us do those miserable beep tests. But something about the way the sky looked — like it was holding its breath, all purple-black and swollen — made my legs want to move.

Barnaby, surprisingly, kept up. We hit the neighborhood park, empty because everyone sane was indoors. My iphone kept buzzing in my pocket, a tiny frantic heartbeat against my hip. Someone was posting something. Someone was texting something. Someone was deciding something about me, and I wasn't there to control the narrative.

Then it happened — lightning split the sky open, this incredible crackling fork of white-blue that turned the whole world strobe-light bright for one perfect second. In that frozen moment, I saw everything: the way Barnaby's golden fur looked like he'd swallowed a star, the playground swings suspended in mid-air, the terrified-open expression on my own face reflected in the puddle by the bench.

Thunder followed, shaking the ground under my sneakers. My phone went dark.

'Dude,' I breathed, bent over with my hands on my knees. Barnaby nudged my hand with his wet nose, like, *you good though?*

The rain started falling — not gradually, but all at once, like someone up there got tired of waiting. We were soaked in seconds. My phone was probably drowning. My social life was definitely drowning. But standing there in the downpour, with this ridiculous dog shaking water everywhere like he'd just won the lottery, I started laughing.

Like, actually laughing. The kind where your stomach hurts and you can't stop and you don't even care what you look like.

'You know what, Barns?' I said, scratching behind his ears while rain plastered my hair to my forehead. 'Let them think I'm weird. At least I'm not boring.'

We walked home in the storm, two drowned rats against the world, and somewhere in the distance, the sky lit up again like it was agreeing with me.