Chloride Summer

The Miller's **pool** party. The social event of the freshman year. Everyone who's anyone would be there, including Jason Chen, who I'd been lowkey obsessed with since August.

I stood by the water in my oversized Target swimsuit, clutching my **iPhone** like a lifeline. Scroll. Like. Comment. Anything to look busy. Anything to avoid the fact that I was literally the only person not swimming.

"Mia!" Sarah waved from the deep end. "Get in! The water's perfect!"

"In a minute!" I called back, lying through my teeth.

My mom had made me take a **vitamin** D supplement that morning because "you never go outside anymore, Mia, you're practically a vampire." Now here I was, outside, and still wishing I was anywhere but here.

Jason emerged from the water, droplets running down his chest, and my brain short-circuited. He flopped onto the lounge chair next to me and stretched his arms behind his head. Casual. Effortless. Everything I wasn't.

"You okay?" he asked.

My **palm**s were sweating. Actually sweating. In ninety-degree heat.

"Yeah, just... checking something." I waved my phone vaguely.

Jason laughed. "You're not gonna get in at all, are you?"

"I don't have a suit," I blurted, then wanted to die. Because I was literally wearing one.

He glanced at my Target special. "Looks like a suit to me."

"I mean, I don't have a GOOD suit." The words fell out before I could stop them. "Not like Sarah's or Kayla's. Not like..." I gestured vaguely at the bikini-clad goddesses across the pool.

Jason studied me for a second. Then he stood up and cannonballed into the deep end, sending a wave of chlorinated water everywhere—including all over me and my precious phone.

My scream died halfway out as I surfaced from the splash, dripping wet, my phone clutched to my chest.

"There," he said, grinning from the water. "Now you're already wet. Might as well swim."

I looked at my soaked clothes. At my definitely-not-waterproof phone. At Jason, waiting.

And for the first time all day, I didn't overthink it. I jumped in.

The chlorine stung my eyes. My phone was probably ruined. But underwater, everything was muffled and blue and simple. And when I surfaced, Jason was still there, smiling like he'd been waiting for me to figure it out.

"Took you long enough," he said.

"Shut up," I said back. But I was smiling too.