Chlorine Kisses & Orange Crush

My phone buzzed at 11:47 PM. Again. I was doing that thing where you full-on **spy** on someone's Instagram stories — watching, rewinding, analyzing every frame like it's classified intelligence. Maya's story: a pool party I wasn't invited to. Typical.

Next morning, Mom dropped the bomb. We were going to Uncle Dave's farm. In the middle of summer. When my social life was basically a corpse.

"There's even a **pool**," she said, like that fixed everything.

Uncle Dave's place smelled like hay and something ancient. Out back, an above-ground pool sat like a turquoise spaceship in the middle of nowhere. But the real showstopper was inside the guest room — this giant stuffed **bear** I'd loved as a kid, now dusty and judging me with plastic button eyes.

"You still sleep with that?" Chloe, my cousin, leaned in the doorway, grinning. She was two years older and had that effortless vibe I'd been trying to hack since seventh grade.

"No," I lied. "It's decor."

She laughed, tossing me an **orange** Fanta. "Sure, Jan. Whatever helps you sleep at night."

We ended up by the pool, just sitting on the edge, legs in the water. The sun baked everything gold. Chloe told me about her freshman year — fake friends, bad decisions, the time she cried in a Target bathroom because someone called her outfit **bull**.

"Social media's a lie," she said, splashing water. "Everyone's curating their life like it's a museum exhibit. But the real stuff? The stuff that actually matters? That's the messy parts you don't post."

I thought about Maya's story again. How perfect everything looked.

"You know what's wild?" Chloe said. "This bear," she pointed inside through the sliding door. "I used to think it was lame. But honestly? Knowing what you like and not caring who judges it? That's the flex. That's the whole vibe."

Something clicked. Maybe not having plans wasn't tragic. Maybe sitting in an above-ground pool with my cousin and a Fanta was actually fine. Maybe I didn't need to spy on other people's lives to validate my own.

I took a sip of my orange Fanta. Fizz bubbles dancing on my tongue. "Yeah," I said. "Maybe."