Chlorine Dreams

The pool looked like a monster's mouth, all shimmering blue and ready to swallow me whole. I stood there in my orange bikini—like, actually neon orange, the kind that screams notice me—and suddenly my breath got all tight.

"You coming in or what?" Maya called from the water, splashing enough to get my ankle wet. Her friend group had adopted me this summer, somehow, and I was still waiting for them to realize I wasn't actually cool.

I'd spent my whole life avoiding pools. Being the only hijabi at swim parties meant explanations, or sitting out, or that one time in seventh grade when I'd shown up in full clothes and someone asked if I was scared of water getting on my clothes.

But I was fifteen now, and trying this whole being-brave thing.

"Yasmin!" Maya waved me over. "We're playing sharks and minnows. You're a minnow."

The terror gripped my chest. But then I looked at Maya's messy braid, at how Leo's glasses were crooked, at how everyone was just... existing. Nobody was watching me like I thought they'd be. Nobody cared that my swimsuit was the loudest thing in the backyard.

The orange had seemed like a mistake when I bought it. Too bold. Too much.

But maybe too much was exactly what I needed.

I jumped.

The water wrapped around me, cool and shocking and amazing. I came up sputtering while everyone laughed, and for once, I was laughing too. Leo swam over like a sea lion. "You're it, by the way."

I started swimming after them, clumsy and graceless, but I was moving. I was part of the game. Later, when I climbed out with wrinkled fingers and chlorine in my hair, Maya tossed me a towel. "Your suit is sick, by the way."

"Thanks," I said, and meant it.

The orange wasn't too much. It was exactly enough. And the pool wasn't a monster's mouth anymore. It was just water, and I was just a girl who'd finally decided to get in.