Blue Light & Chlorine Burns

The **pool** water reflected fractured versions of everyone I knew—Jenna's perfect cascade of mermaid-worthy hair, Tyler's abs that definitely didn't come from gym class, and somewhere in there, me.

"You coming in or what?" Tyler called, splashing water that hit me like tiny arrows.

I clutched my **iPhone** to my chest like a shield. If I went in, if I took off my cover-up, they'd see. The uneven skin tone. The fact that my summer wasn't filled with beach trips and candid laughter like my Instagram suggested.

"Y'all know I just started a new **vitamin** regimen," I lied, gesturing vaguely at my face. "Gotta let it work, you know?"

Jenna rolled her eyes, but in that way that said she understood the unwritten rules of teenage girlhood—the elaborate architecture of excuses we built to avoid vulnerability.

My phone buzzed. Another notification. I'd spent the entire summer curating a version of myself that didn't exist—filters, carefully chosen angles, captions that screamed *casual perfection* while I sat in my room overthinking every social interaction.

"Maya." It was Tyler, suddenly at the pool edge, dripping **water** onto the concrete. "Your phone. Put it down."

"What?"

"You're not here. You're everywhere else but here." He held out a hand. "Jump in with us. The water's not scary. It's just water."

Something about the way he said it—like it was the most obvious thing in the world—made the knots in my chest loosen. I looked at my phone, then at the fractured reflections in the pool.

I set it on a towel.

And jumped.

The water swallowed me—chlorine and cool shock and the muffled sounds of laughter from above. When I broke the surface, gasping, Jenna and Tyler were grinning like they'd been waiting.

"See?" Tyler splashed me. "You're actually here."

And I was. Not the filtered version, not the anxious overthinker. Just Maya, wet and real and finally present.

Later, as the sun began to set and everyone's fingers wrinkled like raisins, my iPhone lay abandoned on the table. No notifications could compete with this—the way the water caught the last light, the taste of chlorine kisses, the feeling of being exactly where I was supposed to be.

My mom's vitamin regimen could wait. Some things you couldn't supplement your way into. Some things you just had to dive for.