When the Sky Split Open

Maya was pretending to be chill about it, but honestly? Being ghosted by your former best friend sucked. Jada hadn't replied to her texts in three weeks, and Maya had officially moved from "confused" to "that's actually fine whatever."

The cable chose that exact moment to die.

"Seriously?" Maya groaned, throwing her phone onto her bed. No streaming, no WiFi, no distraction from the fact that her entire friend group had somehow shifted without her. The storm outside was getting wild—sky lighting up like someone was taking flash photography of the clouds.

Then the dog started losing it.

Buster, her mom's anxiety-ridden rescue lab, was already trembling. Each flash of lightning made him flatten himself against the hallway floor like a literal pancake. Maya sighed, sliding down to sit with him.

"Bro, it's just weather," she said, scratching behind his ears. "You're being dramatic."

Buster looked at her with those wet, judgmental eyes like *says the one crying over a failed friendship.*

Her phone buzzed. Unknown number.

"Hey it's Jada. R u home? The cable guy is supposed to come to my house but he's at ur address by mistake can u check??"

Maya's stomach did this thing where it flipped and then immediately regretted it.

She stepped onto the porch. Lightning cracked so close she could taste ozone in the air. And there was Jada, standing under her porch light looking exactly the same but also completely different—taller, somehow, and wearing a denim jacket that was *very* specific to her current vibe.

"Your dad sent me," Maya said awkwardly, holding out the cable remote the technician had left by mistake. "He was at my house."

Jada's eyes went wide. "Wait, are you okay? Buster hates storms."

Maya blinked. "You remember that?"

"Dude, we literally grew up together," Jada said, and then this silence happened, thick with everything they weren't saying. Thunder rattled the porch.

"I missed you," Jada said finally, not looking at Maya. "I was going through some stuff and I didn't know how to—"

"It's fine,"

"It's not fine. I was being a terrible friend."

Maya looked at Jada, really looked at her, and something in her chest loosened. "Yeah, you kind of were."

Buster chose that moment to bolt outside, terrified of another lightning flash. Both girls scrambled after him, ending up soaked and breathless in the yard, laughing helplessly as they wrestled eighty pounds of terrified lab back inside.

"Friends again?" Jada asked, breathless.

Maya grinned. "On probation."

"Fair."