Breathing Underwater

Five a.m. practices. That's what turned me into a zombie. I mean, actual walking dead status — shambling through school halls, eyes half-glazed, responding to questions with unintelligible grunts. My best friend Maya started calling me her "personal undead companion," which wasn't far off. Between AP classes, swim team captain responsibilities, and my mom's insistence that I needed exactly 17mg of some obscure vitamin D supplement to perform optimally, I was running on fumes and caffeine.

"You need to live a little," Maya said, dragging me toward Jake's pool party. "Literally. You're starting to smell like chlorine and despair."

The party was already lit when we arrived — music thumping, people cannonballing, someone doing a keg stand with sparkling cider. I hovered near the snack table, clutching my vitamin gummies like a security blanket, feeling painfully awkward. Social gatherings weren't exactly my element. Water was. Water was predictable. People? Not so much.

Then I saw him.

Jake Torres, leaning against the pool fence, looking unfairly good in swim trunks, smiling at something his friends were saying. We'd had chemistry together all year but never actually spoken. Probably because I'd been too busy being a zombie to notice much beyond my next meet.

"Hey," he said, suddenly beside me. "You're the swim team captain, right? Saw you crush the 200 free at regionals."

I almost choked on my vitamin. "Uh, yeah. That's me. Crushing things. Mostly my own will to live, but sometimes races too."

He laughed. A genuine laugh. "I feel that. Want to get in? The water's actually decent temperature."

Something shifted. Maybe it was the way he didn't look away. Maybe I was just done being asleep at the wheel of my own life.

"Sure," I said, swallowing the last vitamin gummy. "But I should warn you — I may have forgotten how to swim for fun instead of points."

"I'll teach you," Jake said, heading toward the pool. "It's like regular swimming, but nobody's timing you and you're allowed to smile."

I kicked off my flip-flops and followed. The zombie was waking up, and for the first time in months, I was curious to see what happened next.