Chlorine and Courage

The pool party at Jenna's house was supposed to be the highlight of summer before sophomore year, but Maya stood on the deck clutching her towel like a security blanket. Everyone else was already splashing around in the crystal blue water—Tyler doing cannonballs off the diving board, Sarah and her friends floating on inflatables, laughing at something on their phones.

Maya's older brother had told her to take a vitamin D supplement every morning that summer. "You're inside too much, gaming, not getting enough sun," he'd said, pressing the bottle into her hand. But the real reason she avoided the pool wasn't vitamins or sun exposure—it was the swimsuit. The one-piece her mom had bought was practical, sure, but everyone else wore bikinis or athletic two-pieces that looked like they belonged in a music video.

"Hey!" Tyler yelled, dripping wet as he hauled himself out of the pool. "Maya, finally! Get in here!"

"Yeah, Maya!" called Chase, the guy she'd had a crush on since seventh grade. He was floating on his back, looking annoyingly perfect. "Water's sick. Don't be boring."

Boring. The word stung more than chlorine in her eyes. She was tired of being the quiet one, the observer, the girl who watched life happen from behind a screen or through a window. Her brother's voice echoed in her head: sometimes you have to fake confidence until it becomes real. Total bull, she'd thought at the time. But staring at the shimmering water, watching her friends having fun without her...

She dropped her towel.

The swimsuit wasn't what mattered. The vitamin D wasn't what mattered. What mattered was that she was sixteen and spending another summer on the sidelines of her own life.

Maya took a breath and jumped.

The shock of cold water was instant and everywhere. She surfaced, sputtering, to find Chase grinning at her. "See? Told you."

"Shut up," Maya laughed, splashing him right in the face.

Later, when they were all sitting on the deck eating pizza and watching the sunset turn the pool water gold, Tyler raised his soda can. "To Maya finally joining the land of the living."

Everyone clinked cans. "To Maya," Chase said, and he was looking at her, really looking at her, and Maya thought maybe this was what her brother meant—about the vitamin thing, about being yourself. Some things you couldn't supplement. Some things you just had to jump in and experience.