Bear Lake Summer

Maya's frizz had already expanded to three times its normal volume by the time she reached the dock. Of course. The one day Jake invited her to Bear Lake, and she looked like she'd stuck her finger in an electrical socket.

"Yo! You made it!" Jake waved from the water, his mop of curls somehow perfect despite the humidity. Because that's how it worked for Jake — everything effortless, everything golden.

She hesitated. Her hair situation was catastrophic. But then she remembered her mom's advice: nobody notices what you're insecure about. They're all too busy worrying about themselves.

"Coming!" She kicked off her flip-flops.

The water was that perfect velvet temperature, cool enough to wake you up, warm enough to stay. Jake treaded water nearby, grinning like he had a secret.

"So," he said. "You ever been to Bear Cave before?"

"The cave? Isn't it like, super deep?"

He shrugged. "Some kids from school went last summer. Said they found old bear scratches on the walls. Real ones, from like, actual bears."

Maya rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right. They probably carved those themselves."

"Wanna check?"

They swam to the rocky edge where the cave mouth yawned open. Dark. Mysterious. The kind of place you'd definitely avoid in a horror movie.

Jake pulled something from his swim trunks pocket. A vitamin bottle. Empty now, repurposed to hold something that glowed faintly blue when he shook it.

"Glow stick liquid," he explained. "For emergencies."

Maya snorted. "Jake, we're literally fifty feet from shore."

"EMERGENCY glow stick liquid, Maya. There's a difference."

She laughed, and suddenly it didn't matter that her hair was a frizz explosion. It didn't matter that she'd spent the morning comparing herself to Instagram models and finding herself lacking. Jake thought glow stick liquid in a vitamin bottle was worth saving. Jake thought exploring a probably-not-haunted cave was the best way to spend a Tuesday.

They didn't go deep. Just far enough that the cave's cool breath raised goosebumps on their arms. Jake cracked the vitamin bottle open and a trickle of blue illuminated the walls. No bear scratches — just initials and dates going back decades, other teenagers who'd stood exactly here, other summers exactly like this one.

"We should write ours," Maya said suddenly.

Jake's smile widened. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. M&J. Summer '26."

He fished a rock from the cave floor, something sharp enough to carve. They worked together, scratching their mark into the stone, two friends in a cave at Bear Lake, hair wet and wild, water dripping from their elbows, vitamin-glow illuminating something that felt, for the first time all summer, like exactly enough.