When Lightning Strikes Twice

Maya stood at the edge of Jake's backyard pool, clutching her solo cup like it was a lifeline. Everyone else was already in the water, laughing and splashing like they'd all been friends since kindergarten. Which, technically, most of them had.

"Hey! You coming in or what?"

It was Fox — real name Marcus, but everyone called him that because of his copper hair and the way he could talk himself out of literally anything. He was also Maya's massive crush since seventh grade, which made everything approximately ten times more awkward.

"Yeah, just... yeah!" Maya called back, her voice doing that embarrassing crack-y thing it always did when she was nervous.

She was about to just jump in and get it over with when something caught her eye. A cat — a gorgeous, orange tabby that looked suspiciously like Fox — was sitting on the patio table, licking something from a paper plate.

"Wait, is that..." Maya stepped closer. The cat looked at her with zero shame, then went back to its business.

"Is that cat eating your papaya?" Fox had appeared beside her, dripping wet.

"My mom's trying to be all 'exotic fruit' this summer," Maya explained, feeling her face heat up. "She bought, like, five papayas. I brought one because she said I had to 'share the culture.'"

Fox stared at the cat. "That cat has better taste than anyone here."

Suddenly, the sky opened up. Not rain — lightning. Actual forked lightning that cracked across the sky like something out of a movie, followed by thunder that shook the ground. Everyone screamed and scrambled toward the house.

But the cat didn't move. It just kept eating its papaya, completely unbothered.

"She's fearless," Fox said softly. Then he looked at Maya, really looked at her, for the first time all night. "You know what? Screw the pool. Want to just hang out and watch the storm?"

Maya's stomach did that fluttery thing that happened sometimes. "Yeah. Actually, yeah."

They sat on the covered porch, watching the lightning paint the sky while the orange cat finished its papaya. And for the first time all night, Maya didn't feel like she was on the outside looking in.

Sometimes the best moments aren't the ones you planned. Sometimes they're just you, a stolen papaya, and lightning striking twice in the same place.