Chlorine & Chances

The first day of freshman year, nobody tells you that the cafeteria hierarchy gets decided by who spends summer at the **pool**. I was doomed—my family's above-ground discount special didn't count.

"You're coming to Jordan's party, right?" Maya asked between bites of her salad. We'd been best friends since fourth grade, but suddenly she was wearing MAC lip gloss and hanging out with Jordan's crowd. The popular crowd. The ones who Instagrammed their golden-hour beach trips and actually knew how to talk to boys without stuttering.

"I don't think so," I mumbled, pushing **spinach** around my plate. Mom had gone through a "healthy lunch phase" that lasted exactly three days, but I was still stuck with the evidence.

"You have to. Tyler's gonna be there." She wiggled her eyebrows. "He's gonna make varsity **baseball** this year. Did you see him at tryouts? That home run was practically cinematic."

I had seen it. I'd also seen the way his hair curled damp against his neck afterward, and how his laugh sounded like something that belonged in a coming-of-age movie where the protagonist definitely didn't spend July babysitting her little brother and watching Netflix.

"Tyler doesn't even know I exist."

"Not with that attitude." Maya flipped her hair. "Anyway, Jordan's cousin is coming. She's a sophomore. Apparently she's, like, super chill."

**Chill.** The word that meant everything and nothing. I wanted to be chill. I wanted to be the girl who showed up to parties with the right swimsuit and the right inside jokes, not the one who hovered near the snack table wondering if she could leave yet without it being weird.

Friday arrived with stomach-flipping anticipation. I'd spent forty minutes on my eyeliner and stolen my sister's expensive waterproof mascara. The pool was already crowded when I got there, chlorine and coconut sunscreen hanging heavy in the humidity.

"You made it!" Maya materialized at my elbow, steering me toward a group of girls. "This is Lila—Jordan's cousin. Lila, this is Chloe."

Lila was sprawled on a lounge chair like she owned it, wearing a bikini that looked like it had cost more than my entire wardrobe. Her hair was this perfect messy beach-wave situation that probably wasn't actually messy at all.

"Hey," she said, not looking up from her phone. "You're the girl who sits behind Tyler in homeroom, right?"

"Um. Yeah?"

"He thinks you're **fox**." She finally glanced up, sunglasses sliding down her nose. "That's, like, his weird way of saying cute. He's got this whole vintage slang thing going on. It's weirdly endearing once you get used to it."

My face did this uncontrollable hot thing. "He said that?"

"To me, like, five minutes ago." Lila sat up, suddenly interested. "He's over there by the diving board pretending not to look this way. I could accidentally splash him if you wanted an excuse to say hi."

"No, that's—"

"Too late." She splashed water dramatically, droplets arcing perfectly toward the group of guys. Tyler glanced over, and when our eyes met, he actually smiled. Not the polite smile you give people you barely know, but a real one.

"Chloe!" He waved. "You came."

I waded into the pool, heart pounding against my ribs like it was trying to escape. "Yeah. I... I'm not really great at swimming, though."

"That's okay." He treaded water near me, droplets clinging to his eyelashes. "I can teach you. Unless you'd rather just hang out and talk about how Mr. Henderson gave us that weird pop quiz yesterday?"

Later, floating on my back while the sky turned pink and gold, I watched Lila and Maya inside by the snacks, laughing like they'd known each other forever. The pool lights flickered on, casting rippling patterns across everyone's faces. Summer wasn't over yet, but something about the way Tyler kept looking at me from across the water made me think freshman year might not be the disaster I'd been expecting.

Sometimes, I realized, you just had to take the plunge. Even if your hair looked like a wet rat afterward.