Chlorine and Courage

Marcus stood at the edge of the pool, his orange swim trunks feeling ridiculously bright against everyone else's muted blues and blacks. The baseball cap he'd been wearing all summer to hide his terrible haircut was currently sitting on the lounge chair, leaving his hair exposed to judgment.

"You going in or what?" Chloe called from the water. She was treading water near the diving board, her dark hair slicked back, looking completely effortless. Marcus had been crushing on her since seventh period English, when she'd defended him against that bully Jordan who'd made fun of his spinach-green braces.

"Yeah, just," Marcus started, but his throat seized. What was he supposed to say? That he'd never properly learned to swim? That the deep end still terrified him?

"Bro, don't be a chicken," his best mate Tyler egged him on from the side. "It's just water. Even my little sister can handle it."

The heat was rising in Marcus's cheeks. This was it—the moment he'd been dreading all summer. The invitation to Chloe's pool party had been the highlight of his July, and now he was about to humiliate himself in front of everyone.

But then he remembered something his dad had told him after he'd choked during his baseball tryouts back in May: *Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is exactly what scares you the most.*

Marcus took a breath and jumped.

The water swallowed him whole—cool and shocking and perfect. He came up sputtering while everyone laughed, but not in a mean way. Chloe swam over, grinning.

"Finally! Took you long enough."

"Shut up," Marcus said, but he was smiling too. He'd done it. He'd jumped.

Later, they'd all end up at Chloe's kitchen table, eating her mum's weird spinach dip and talking about nothing and everything. Marcus would catch Chloe's eye across the table and something would shift—like maybe he didn't have to be the guy who was scared of everything. Maybe he could be the guy who jumped anyway.