The house groaned under the weight of the heatwave, its old bones creaking like a ship stranded in dead air. Downstairs, Dad swore at the AC unit while Mom handed him tools neither of them knew how to use.

Upstairs, Kiki’s room was a sauna. The hardwood floor burned against bare skin where the thin white blanket didn’t reach. You and Kiki lay sprawled like discarded laundry—both in a sweat-slicked tank top and boy shorts, both of you too exhausted to care about modesty. The single box fan hummed with flowing air across the two of you, really just pushing thick air in useless circles.

“Remember when we used to make forts?” she murmured, voice sticky with heat.

You did. Blankets draped over chairs, hiding from the world together. But this wasn’t hiding. This was something else. The fan’s rhythm filled the silence as sweat trickled between her collarbones.

Then the power went out.

Darkness swallowed the room. The fan died mid-whir.

“Oh god,” Kiki exhaled—half-laugh, half-despair—and in the blackness.

You both held your breath.

Downstairs, Dad yelled something about the breaker.

Now the two of lay there, exhausted & drenched in perspiration, debating surrendering to the darkness in sleep.