Chlorine Dreams

The **running** track stretched before me like a sentence I didn't want to finish. Coach Miller said cross country would build character. What it actually built was blisters and a deep resentment of 6 AM.

"You quitting again?" Maya leaned against the fence, eating actual fruit like some kind of wellness influencer. In this economy, at our school, carrying fresh **papaya** was a power move. It screamed: my parents buy me expensive things without asking why.

"Just catching my breath," I lied.

"The **pool** party's tonight," she said, like I didn't know. "Everyone's going. Even Jordan."

Jordan. The name landed like a tiny grenade in my chest.

"I don't **swimming**," I said. "The chlorine smell triggers my asthma."

"You don't have asthma."

"Metaphorical asthma."

Maya sighed, and I felt bad. She was trying, in her aggressive way. We'd been friends since seventh grade, before she grew three inches and got cool, and I stayed short and acquired a comprehensive collection of social anxieties.

The problem wasn't the water. The problem was that last summer, something happened at a pool party, and now pools felt like performing on a stage I didn't know the lines to. Jordan had been there. Jordan had seen.

"Take this," Maya pressed something into my palm. A gummy **vitamin** D supplement. "My mom says we're all deficient. It's basically sunshine in a gummy bear."

"Did your mom also say you should aggressively distribute them to depressed teenagers?"

"That's a bonus feature."

I almost smiled. Almost.

That night, I stood outside the community center, where muffled bass and genuine laughter spilled through the doors. People were in there. Jordan was in there. Living their best lives, unconcerned about the gravitational weight of teenage existence.

I swallowed the vitamin gummy. Tasted like artificial peach and desperation.

Then I walked away from the pool, toward the track, under actual stars. Started running. Not because Coach Miller told me to. Not because it would make me faster or stronger or better.

Just because my body could move, and the night air was real, and nobody was watching.

My phone buzzed. Jordan: "where r u??"

I kept running. Some victories happen where no one sees them coming.