Chlorine Stains and Orange Skies

Marcus stood at the edge of the pool, clutching his towel like a security blanket. The annual block party. The social event of the summer. And he was about to ruin everything.

"Yo, Marcus! You gonna stand there all day or actually get in?" Jake yelled from the water, doing some ridiculous cannonball that splashed half the party.

Marcus forced a laugh. "Yeah, yeah. Just warming up."

Truth was, his stomach was doing full-on gymnastics. Not because of the **swimming**—he'd been on the swim team since seventh grade. No, it was because Maya was sitting two chairs away, looking absolutely unbothered in that **orange** bikini that made his brain short-circuit.

He'd spent the entire school year building up the nerve to talk to her properly. Not just hey-whats-up-homework talk. Like, REAL talk. And tonight was supposed to be the night.

Then came the spinach dip incident.

Earlier, Marcus had been absolutely demolishing the appetizers—stress-eating, whatever—and his sister Jada had pulled him aside with wide eyes.

"You've got **spinach** in your teeth," she'd whispered. "Like, a lot of it. You look like you've been chewing on a houseplant."

He'd spent twenty minutes in the bathroom picking his teeth clean, but the damage was done. The confidence he'd been building all week had evaporated. Now he just felt like everyone was staring at him, waiting for him to mess up again.

"Marcus!" Maya waved from her chair. "You coming in or what? The water's perfect!"

His heart did that thing where it forgot how to beat properly.

"Yeah!" he called back, his voice cracking. "Just—uh—just coming!"

He dropped his towel and walked to the diving board. Jake and his crew were by the shallow end, cracking up about something. Probably him. Probably everything.

Marcus climbed onto the board, his feet suddenly feeling like they weighed a thousand pounds each. The sun was setting behind the houses, painting the sky in streaks of pink and gold and that same perfect orange that Maya was wearing.

He could just dive. Just do it. But his feet wouldn't move.

Then Jake yelled something that made his blood run cold.

"Yo, check it out! It's the **bear**!"

Laughter erupted. Marcus's face burned so hot he felt like he might actually catch fire. Bear. The nickname they'd given him in sixth grade when he'd gotten stuck in that tree during capture the flag. The name that had followed him through middle school, into high school, and apparently here.

He stood frozen on the diving board, trapped between humiliation and just wanting to disappear. The laughter swelled. Someone whistled. And in that moment, Marcus realized something.

He could dive. He could swim away. He could leave.

Or.

Marcus squared his shoulders. He looked straight at Jake, then at Maya, who wasn't laughing.

Then he yelled, "ROAR!" and did the most ridiculous, uncoordinated cannonball in the history of cannonballs.

Silence for exactly one second. Then everyone lost it.

But this time, Maya was laughing too. And when Marcus surfaced, spluttering and wiping water from his eyes, she was already in the pool next to him.

"Okay," she said, grinning. "That was actually pretty legendary."

Marcus wiped his face, still tasting chlorine, but for the first time all night, he wasn't thinking about spinach or bears or anything else.

"Yeah," he said, smiling back. "I've been practicing."