When Lightning Struck

The papaya incident started everything, which was ridiculous because Maya hated papaya. But there she was, sophomore year, holding this impossible fruit while Jordan—the absolute sphinx of homeroom—stood five feet away, acting like he didn't see her.

"You gonna eat that or just stare dramatically?" Jordan asked, and Maya's brain short-circuited like lightning striking a telephone pole. Her hair, already electric from static, practically stood on end.

"It's for... my cousin," she lied. "She's doing a... fruit. Thing."

Smooth. Really selling it, Maya.

Jordan's mouth did that almost-smile thing, the one that made her stomach do weird little flips. "Cool. Cool cousin."

The cafeteria cable everyone swore connected to secret WiFi wasn't even real, but people still sat near it like it was social holy ground. Maya had parked herself there freshman year, desperate for proximity to popularity, desperate to be someone. Someone with better hair, someone who knew how to talk to boys like Jordan without dissolving into awkward.

"My hair's being weird today," she blurted, because apparently her mouth was just gonna go rogue.

Jordan stepped closer. Close enough that she could smell his stupid nice cologne. "Looks fine to me."

"It's doing the thing. Again. The frizz thing that happened at homecoming when that girl—"

"The lightning was gonna strike either way, Maya."

He remembered.

The homecoming dance, where a storm knocked out power and Maya's hair frizzed into something resembling a sentient being, and Jordan had handed her a hair tie from his pocket and said, "Nobody's looking at your hair anyway." They'd spent the rest of the dance sitting on the gym floor, eating vending machine snacks, not talking much but somehow saying everything.

"Why do you always do that?" she asked quietly. "Act like you don't see everything."

Jordan's almost-smile became real. "Maybe I just like watching you figure it out."

The papaya sat forgotten on the table. The cable cable still stretched across the floor, useless and meaningless. But Jordan was looking at her like she was the only person in the cafeteria, and for the first time in forever, Maya didn't want to be anyone else.

"Your cousin's gonna want that papaya back," he said.

"She can wait," Maya replied, and something lightning-bright and terrifying and wonderful sparked between them.