Catfish & Chlorine

The pool party at Tyler's house was basically social suicide waiting to happen. I stood there in my Target two-piece while everyone else looked like they'd walked straight out of a TikTok beach montage. My phone buzzed — Mom sent a pic of Barnaby, my rescue cat, literally sleeping face-down in his water bowl again. That cat had zero survival instincts, unlike me, who was currently calculating the precise angle to jump in without my thighs jiggling.

"Yo Maya, you coming in or what?" Tyler called out, doing this annoying backflip that had everyone cheering.

I forced a smile. "Yeah, just warming up."

Then I felt it — that piece of **spinach** from my earlier smoothie was absolutely, positively wedged between my front teeth. I'd been talking to people for twenty minutes with green stuff decorating my smile like some kind of messed-up festive ornament. No one had said anything. Either they were being nice or they were secretly recording it for their private story.

I reached the pool edge just as Brianna — who I'd been lowkey friends with since seventh grade — swam over and squinted at me. "You got something in—"

"I know," I said, and just went for it.

The water hit my skin like ice cubes down my shirt, but honestly? I'd never felt more relieved. Under the surface, everything was muffled and blue and perfect. No awkward conversations, no body image spiral, no spinach visibility. Just me and the silence and my arms pulling me through the water. I wasn't great at **swimming** but I was decent, and for a second there, I didn't care who was watching.

When I came up for air, Brianna was right there grinning. "Your mom just posted another pic of Barnaby. That cat is unhinged."

"Right?" I laughed, spitting water. "She says he fell asleep in his water bowl again."

"Classic." Brianna splashed me. "Hey, after this, wanna get boba? My treat."

And just like that, I wasn't the awkward girl with spinach in her teeth anymore. I was just Maya, part of the group, paddling backward and laughing so hard my nose stung from the chlorine. Sometimes you gotta jump in the deep end to realize you can actually swim.