The Summer I Swapped Bases
I was supposed to be at baseball practice. Again. Coach Miller had been texting me all morning about the regional semifinals, but instead I was at Maya's pool party, hiding in the ...
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I was supposed to be at baseball practice. Again. Coach Miller had been texting me all morning about the regional semifinals, but instead I was at Maya's pool party, hiding in the ...
The orange hair was what I noticed first — this vibrant, impossible shade that screamed for attention even as she tried to disappear behind the water tower overlooking our baseball...
Leo stood at the edge of the pool, clutching his phone like a lifeline. Jordan's annual pool party. The social event of the summer. The invitation hierarchy at Northwood High was b...
Maya's hands wouldn't stop shaking as she stood in front of the bathroom mirror. Her natural hair, newly freed from two years of chemical straightening, formed a magnificent halo a...
Maya stared at her reflection, fingers tangled in her frizzy hair. It was junior prom night, and somehow her hair had developed a mind of its own—bursting everywhere like she'd stu...
Maya's phone buzzed with another text from Jordan: 'PYRAMID PARTY TONIGHT. 10 PM. Jackson's house. BE THERE.' The pyramid parties were legendary—a literal pyramid of Solo cups fil...
Maya had been invisible for fifteen years. She was the girl in the back row, the one whose name teachers always forgot, the one who existed in the margins of everyone else's spotli...
I stood at the edge of the pool, clutching my phone like a lifeline. The **water** glimmered under the string lights, everyone laughing and splashing like they'd been born knowing ...
Maya hated three things: her stepdad's baseball obsession, the community pool she was forced to lifeguard at all summer, and riddles. So of course, that July brought all three. "...
Summer of sophomore year, and I was hiding behind a lounge chair like my entire social life depended on it. The pool party at Jessica's house was supposed to be the event of the se...
Maya's cousin Tío Carlos had sworn the pyramid scheme was legit. 'It's not a scheme, mija. It's *opportunity*.' Now the papaya orchard investment was bust, and Maya was stuck helpi...
Maya's reflection showed zero trace of the seventeen-year-old who'd boldly signed up for swim team tryouts yesterday. Just a girl with spinach stuck between her front teeth and zer...