Dead in the Water

The chlorine hit me first—that sharp, chemical smell that screamed summer in the suburbs. I stood at the edge of the **pool**, clutching my towel like armor, while Chelsea-who-I-called-my-**friend**-but-who-secretly-made-me-want-to-die-inside splashed dramatically in the shallow end.

"Maya! Get in here! The water's literally perfect!"

I'd dyed my **hair** blue yesterday. Impulse decision after failing my math final. Now it was a question everyone asked: What's with the hair? Why blue? Are you going through something? The truth was too embarrassing: I just wanted to be someone else for five minutes.

**Zombie** Nation—that's what we called junior year. We were all walking around half-dead from AP classes, sports, extracurriculars, the endless grind of looking like we had our lives figured out when most of us couldn't even decide what to eat for lunch.

"What are you waiting for?" Chelsea called. "It's a POOL PARTY, Maya. Not a funeral."

That's when I saw it—on the diving board, like some ancient gatekeeper of teenage misery—was a plastic **sphinx** decoration, probably left over from someone's Egypt-themed quinceañera. The riddle hit me harder than any test question: What walks on two legs, wants to be seen, but's terrified of being looked at?

Answer: Me. Every fifteen-year-old girl ever.

Something snapped. I dropped my towel and jumped. The water shocked my system—cold, loud, alive. Chelsea's friends stared. Chelsea did too. But I didn't care. For the first time all year, I wasn't thinking about how I looked or who was watching. I was just floating, weightless, watching the blue hair spread like ink in the water.

"About time," Chelsea said, but she was smiling. "Your hair looks sick, by the way."

Maybe she wasn't so bad after all. Maybe we were all just zombies trying to feel alive, and sometimes that meant jumping into pools fully clothed because the weight of being fifteen was just too much to carry on dry land.