Chlorine and Vitamin Gummies

The pool shimmered like liquid diamonds under the July sun, but Maya's stomach felt like it was doing backflips.Pool party.Everything about those two words screamed disaster.

"You're not actually nervous, are you?" her little brother Leo asked, popping a sour gummy vitamin into his mouth like it was candy. "It's just Jessica's house. We've been there like, a million times."

"That was before," Maya muttered, staring at her reflection. "Before everything changed."

Fifteen and suddenly nothing fit right. Not her favorite cutoffs, not her old position on the social ladder, definitely not the skin she'd been living in for fifteen years. The acne on her chin had its own area code now, and don't even get her started on the braces situation.

Her mom appeared in the doorway, vitamin D supplement in hand. "Remember, take your vitamins. You're growing, Maya. Your body needs fuel."

"I know, Mom." She washed it down with chlorophyll water, trying to ignore Leo's gagging noises.

The walk to Jessica's felt like marching toward execution. The sound of laughter and splashing grew louder with each step. This was it—the moment she'd been overthinking all week.

Then she saw him by the pool gate.

Caleb.

The same Caleb who'd accidentally called her "Malaria" in bio last month when they'd been paired up for that frog dissection. The same Caleb with the stupidly perfect hair and effortless smile.

"Hey," he said. "You came."

"Yeah." Maya twisted her pool towel. "Barely. My social battery was at 3% before I even left the house."

Caleb laughed, and somehow the knot in her chest loosened. "Mine too, honestly. I've been standing out here for twenty minutes trying to convince myself to jump in."

"What's stopping you?"

He shrugged, looking unexpectedly vulnerable. "Same thing as everyone else, probably. What if I look ridiculous? What if someone notices I can't actually swim that well? What if—"

"What if we just both jump in together and get it over with?" Maya found herself saying.

Caleb's eyes lit up. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. On three?"

They hit the water simultaneously, surfacing sputtering and laughing. The rest of the afternoon blurred into cannonball contests and underwater handshakes, nobody caring about perfect flips or graceful dives. Maya caught Jessica watching them with this knowing smile like she'd planned this whole thing.

Later, as they dripped on the patio waiting for pizza, Caleb nudged her shoulder. "You know, you're actually pretty cool. For someone who called me a terrible swimmer."

"You ARE a terrible swimmer," she shot back, but she was grinning.

The vitamin gummies in Maya's bag remained untouched, but somehow she felt stronger than any supplement could make her. Whatever this summer brought—new friendships, awkward moments, maybe even something with Caleb—she'd bear it.

Some things, she realized, you couldn't supplement your way out of. You just had to dive in.