bullshit and butterfly strokes

Maya stood at the edge of the pool clutching her iPhone like a lifeline. The screen showed seventeen unread notifications from the group chat where everyone was hyping up Tyler's end-of-summer blowout. Meanwhile, Maya was actively avoiding the actual party happening three feet away.

"Yo Maya! You coming in or what?" Tyler called from the deep end, doing his best to look chill while failing spectacularly.

She'd been crushing on Tyler since sophomore year, which was exactly why she was currently pretending to be deeply fascinated by her phone's lock screen. Social anxiety was her bull, the thing that charged through her carefully constructed calm moments and scattered them everywhere.

"I'm good!" she called back, voice cracking. Smooth. Real smooth.

Her best friend Sam emerged from the water like a particularly judgmental dolphin. "Maya, you've been 'running to the bathroom' for twenty minutes. We know you're just staring at your phone."

Maya's face burned. That was the thing about Sam — she saw right through everything. "I'm... I'm just checking something."

"Check this instead," Sam said, and suddenly Maya's iPhone was sailing through the air in a perfect arc toward the pool.

"NO!" Maya lunged forward, instinct taking over. Her phone hit the water with a satisfying splash, and she dove after it without thinking. The cool water shocked her system as her fingers grazed the case. She came up sputtering, clutching her phone to her chest like she'd just rescued a baby from a burning building.

Everyone was staring. And then — they were laughing. But not mean laughing. Like, actual laughing.

"Dude," Tyler said, swimming over. "That was actually hardcore. You literally dove for your phone like it contained the nuclear codes."

Maya realized she was grinning. Her heart was racing, but not from anxiety this time. The bull in her head had quieted down.

"My life is on here," she said, holding up the dripping phone.

"Turn it off," Sam said. "Pool's about to get drained anyway. Tyler's mom ordered pizza and it's gonna be here in ten."

Maya looked at her phone, then at the gathering twilight around the pool, then at Tyler who was looking at her with something that definitely wasn't pity. She powered it down.

"Fine," she said. "But if there's no pineapple pizza, I'm running home."

"Pineapple on pizza is bull, Maya," someone yelled.

"Fight me," she shot back, and for the first time all summer, Maya didn't feel like running. Not from anything.