Cannonball Courage

Maya's favorite black beanie was basically her emotional support hat. Without it, she felt naked — exposed to the judging eyes of high school like a rare Pokémon with no hiding place. So naturally, her best friend dragged her to Jake's pool party without it.

"You need this," Keisha insisted, shoving a Flintstone vitamin at Maya. "Your mom said you skipped breakfast. Again." Maya gagged down the neon orange Barney-shaped pill.

The backyard was chaos. Jake, in all his varsity quarterback glory, stood near the deep end flipping a wet swim cap. Maya's stomach did that awful floaty thing. She couldn't swim. Like, at all. The extent of her aquatic experience was watching H2O on Netflix through a sketchy cable connection that buffered every time someone opened the fridge.

"Yo Maya!" Jake waved her over. "We're doing cannonballs. 10 bucks says you can't beat my splash radius."

The friend group went quiet. Maya felt seventeen pairs of eyes drilling into her.

She could fake it. Fake a phone emergency, fake her period, fake literally anything. But Jake was looking at her with those stupidly perfect brown eyes, and Keisha was giving her the stare.

Maya's phone buzzed in her pocket — her dad calling about the internet bill. The cable guy was supposed to come between 8 and 5, which meant somewhere between never and when-we-feel-like-it.

"Actually," Maya said, her voice cracking, "I can't swim."

The silence stretched. Someone's phone blasted a TikTok audio.

"Wait, seriously?" Jake frowned. "Since when?"

"Since forever." Maya crossed her arms. "My parents tried lessons when I was six. I cried the whole time. They gave up."

"Dude." Jake slid into the water. "I can teach you. Like, right now. It's not rocket science."

Three hours later, Maya had successfully doggy-paddled across the shallow end without hyperventilating. Jake had managed to splash her in the face exactly twice. Keisha had documented the entire thing on her Instagram story.

"You did a thing," Keisha said as they walked home. Maya's hair was a chlorine disaster. She'd lost her favorite earring in the pool. She smelled like a literal human chemical.

"Yeah," Maya smiled. "I guess I did."