Chlorine Dreams

Marcus stood at the edge of the pool, toes curled against the concrete. Everyone else was already splashing around—Jake doing cannonballs off the diving board, Chloe and her friends floating on inflatables like they were posing for a Instagram photoshoot. The water reflected the late afternoon sun, blinding and perfect.

"Yo Marcus, you coming in or what?" Jake yelled, shaking his wet hair like a golden retriever. "Don't be a coward, bro."

Marcus forced a laugh. "Yeah, just warming up." But his stomach was doing backflips.

The truth was, Marcus had been taking these weird vitamin supplements his mom bought from some influencer online—supposedly to help him "bulk up" before high school started. They'd given him the worst gas all week, and he was terrified that if he jumped in the pool, something embarrassing would happen. Like, catastrophic-level embarrassing.

Plus, he'd had spinach in his smoothie at lunch, and he was pretty sure a piece was still wedged between his front teeth. He'd checked in the bathroom mirror three times, but what if it was like, invisible to him but obvious to everyone else?

Chloe drifted by on her flamingo floatie, sunglasses pushed up on her head. "Marcus? You good?"

"Yeah, totally," he said, his voice cracking. Smooth. Real smooth.

"You've been standing there for, like, ten minutes," she said. "It's giving major anxiety vibes."

The group by the diving board had gone quiet. Jake was watching him now. Marcus felt that familiar hot pressure behind his eyes—the same one he got whenever he had to present in class or talk to someone he thought was cool.

He thought about his dad's advice: "Everyone's too busy worrying about themselves to notice you."

Marcus took a breath. Screw it.

He jumped.

The shock of cold water hit him like a wall. When he surfaced, sputtering and wiping his eyes, everyone was still doing their thing. Jake was already racing toward the diving board again. Chloe had drifted away, back in conversation with her friends.

No one cared.

Marcus floated on his back, staring up at the sky turning pink and orange. The vitamins didn't matter. The spinach didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was that he was in the pool, finally part of the chaos.

"Yo Marcus!" Jake yelled. "Race you to the other side!"

Marcus grinned. "You're on."

Maybe high school wouldn't be so bad after all.