Thunder Track Thursday

Maya's lungs burned like she'd swallowed charcoal. She was already late—again—for track practice, and the sky was doing that dramatic thing where it looked bruised and ready to pop.

"MAYA!"

She froze. Ethan.

The boy she'd been lowkey obsessing over since September was standing by the bleachers, holding something that made her stomach drop—her **iPhone**, screen cracked, case missing. How had he found it? She'd lost it somewhere between third period AP Bio and her disastrous attempt to talk to him by the water fountain.

"You dropped this," he said, jogging over. "Also, Coach is gonna kill you. You're literally **running** across the parking lot in flip-flops. Again."

Maya felt her face catch fire. "Thanks. And I know, I'm a mess, whatever."

"Nah, you're good." He smiled, and it was all she could do not to dissolve into a puddle of seventh-grade awkwardness. "Hey, so my friends are having a thing tonight. You should come. We're getting pizza and—you're gonna hate this—watching horror movies even though half of us get scared and pretend we don't."

Then came the **lightning**—a jagged crack of white that split the sky like something out of a movie, followed immediately by thunder that rattled Maya's teeth.

"YIKES," she yelped.

Ethan laughed. "Okay, that was literally perfect timing. You coming or what?"

Maya's brain short-circuited. This wasn't supposed to happen. People like her didn't get invited to things. People like her got invited to study groups and library sessions, not parties with cute boys who found their lost phones and didn't make fun of them for running across the school parking lot like a maniac.

"Yeah," she heard herself say. "Yeah, I'm in."

"Cool. I'll text you the address. Assuming your phone actually works."

"It works! The screen's just... character. It has character."

"Sure, May. Whatever you gotta tell yourself." He tossed her the phone—she fumbled, nearly dropped it again, and caught it against her chest like a football.

As he walked away, Maya noticed something she'd missed before: the faded **orange** sweatband on his wrist, the exact same shade as the one she'd worn to every track meet since freshman year.

She stood there in the rain as the first drops began to fall, clutching her phone, not even caring that her flip-flops were sinking into mud.

She'd deal with Coach later.

Right now, she had a party to get ready for.