Chlorine and Courage

Maya's palms were sweating so much her phone felt slippery. Pool parties at Tyler's house were legendary, and this was the first one of freshman year. She'd spent forty minutes on her hair—another forty picking an outfit that said "I'm trying but not trying too hard."

"You got something in your teeth," said Jayden, her neighbor since kindergarten. "Looks like... spinach?"

Maya's face burned. "I haven't even eaten anything yet!"

"That's worse," he said, grinning. "Leftover from lunch at school? We're talking seven hours ago, Maya."

She was going to kill her mom. The daily vitamin reminder—"Don't forget your vitamins, mija, you're growing"—apparently extended to not checking her reflection in actual daylight.

The crowd around the pool erupted in laughter. Tyler was on his dad's old mechanical bull—apparently his family was weirdly rich in specific ways—and getting absolutely destroyed. The machine bucked, and Tyler went flying into the water with a splash that soaked half the spectators.

"Total bullshit," Tyler sputtered, surfacing. "That thing's rigged."

"Your dad's bull has kicked everyone's ass since sixth grade," someone called out. "You just suck."

Maya stood at the edge of the pool, toes curling against the concrete. Jump in casual? Cannonball? Slide in gracefully and probably slip and almost-drown?

"Hey."

She jumped. It was Alex, the cute junior from her art class. Wet hair slicked back, droplets running down her collarbone.

"You coming in?" Alex asked. "Water's perfect."

"Yeah, I—" Maya started, then caught herself checking her teeth in her phone reflection. Spinach-free, according to the black mirror.

"What?" Alex smiled.

"Nothing." Maya took a breath. "Just—you know what? Yeah."

She jumped.

The shock of cold water was perfect. When she broke the surface, gasping and grinning, Alex was there with a high-five.

"See? Not so bad."

Maya's palms stopped sweating. Finally.

Maybe tomorrow she'd even let her mom remind her about the vitamins without rolling her eyes. But that was a problem for future Maya. Present Maya was having too much fun to worry about anything except whether cannonballs off the diving board were still cool.

(Spoiler: they were, especially when you almost cleared the entire pool on your first try.)