Chlorine Dreams

Summer after sophomore year, the air thick with humidity and my own awkwardness. I'd landed a job at the country club — lowest rung on the social ladder, serving drinks to kids I'd sat next to in homeroom all year.

The pool deck was my domain. Blue umbrellas, screaming children, the eternal smell of chlorine that nothing could wash out. Not my hair, not my uniform, not my dignity.

Then I saw Maya on the padel court.

She moved like the game was choreographed just for her — hair escaping her ponytail, laugh carrying across the complex. Elite summer camp territory. The kind of girl who'd never notice someone like me.

"Extra vitamin D," she joked one afternoon, dropping into the chair opposite me. Her skin glistened. Mine smelled like desperation and sunscreen.

"What?"

"From the sun." She grinned. "I'm basically overdosing."

We talked. Actually talked. Not just hello-while-serving-pretzels talked, but like, real conversation. About how her parents expected her to play college-level padel. About how I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. About how both of us felt like impostors in our own lives.

The summer crystallized into stolen moments between her lessons and my shifts. Pool furniture arranged just so. A shared soda. Her elbow brushing mine — electric, terrifying, perfect.

Then August happened. Camp ended. She'd be back at private school across town, worlds away from my public school reality.

Last day, she handed me something. A single vitamin gummy in its wrapper.

"For next summer," she said. "Don't forget me, okay?"

I still have it somewhere. The pool's closed now. October leaves blanket the deck. But sometimes I catch the scent of chlorine on my clothes, and I'm sixteen again — watching her across the padel courts, wondering if she felt it too.

Wondering if some vitamin D overdose could be enough to sustain me through another winter without her.