Deep End Drama

The thing about country clubs is that everyone acts like they've been here forever, even when they're new. I'd been coming to the Willow Creek Club since I was six, but somehow the summer after eighth grade, everything felt different. The social hierarchy had reshuffled while I wasn't looking.

"You playing padel today?" Jake asked, spinning a racquet in his hand like he'd been doing it his whole life. Jake, who'd definitely just discovered padel last week but acted like he owned the court.

"Maybe," I said, even though I'd never played. That was the thing about being thirteen — you'd rather claim expertise than admit ignorance.

The truth was, I'd been avoiding the padel courts all summer. The sport looked terrifying — fast-moving balls, people shouting in Spanish, everyone moving with this coordinated confidence I definitely didn't possess. But Jake was looking at me, and the sun was glinting off his iPhone, and suddenly I heard myself saying, "Yeah, definitely."

"Sick. We're starting at three," Jake said, already turning away.

I spent the next hour watching padel videos on my phone, trying to memorize the rules while my stomach did nervous flips. Why did I care so much about impressing Jake Miller, who I'd known since kindergarten and who once got his head stuck in a playground slide?

At 2:45, I positioned myself near the pool, pretending to text while actually watching the padel court through my peripheral vision. The swimming area was packed — toddlers screaming,Marco Polo games starting up, the smell of chlorine and coconut sunscreen everywhere.

"You going in?" Jake appeared behind me, dripping wet. His hair was plastered to his forehead in that way that looked annoyingly good.

"Huh? Oh, no. Just cooling off before the game," I lied, gesturing vaguely at the padel courts.

"Game's cancelled. Courts are wet from the sprinklers," Jake said. "We're all going swimming instead. You coming?"

I looked down at my outfit — cutoff denim shorts and a tank top. Not exactly swimming-appropriate. But Jake was already walking toward the pool, and everyone else was following, and suddenly I was struck by how ridiculous it was that I'd spent hours panicking about a sport I'd never played when I could've just been hanging out.

"Hold up," I called, kicking off my flip-flops. "I'm grabbing my suit from my bag."

For the first time all summer, I didn't overthink it. I cannonballed into the deep end, surfacing to Jake's laugh and the realization that the worst moments weren't the ones where you felt awkward — they were the ones where you played it safe and ended up watching from the sidelines.

Later that night, I scrolled through Instagram, seeing photos from the afternoon. There I was, mid-cannonball, looking ridiculous and not caring. I double-tapped the photo someone had tagged me in, then put my phone on my nightstand and fell asleep with chlorine still in my hair.