Deep End Fear

The pool party smelled like chlorine and coconut sunscreen, exactly the kind of vibe Emma usually faked confidence through. But today, sitting on the edge with her legs in the **water**, she couldn't shake the feeling that everyone somehow knew her secret.

"You coming in or what?" Tyler called from the deep end, doing that annoying thing where he splashed water like a total show-off. Tyler, who was practically the king of junior year, whose dad owned the country club, who'd never had a single awkward moment in his entire charmed life.

"Yeah, just warming up," Emma lied, even though her legs were already pruning. The truth was, she couldn't swim. Not really. Not since she was seven and almost drowned at summer camp, an experience she'd successfully repressed until right this second.

"Bro, she's been 'warming up' for like twenty minutes," Madison whispered loudly to her friend, because subtlety wasn't really a thing with Madison's friend group. They'd all been giving her weird looks all day, and suddenly Emma felt like she was **running** out of time to fake it.

Her phone buzzed in her tote bag — probably her mom asking if she was having fun, which was honestly the most embarrassing question ever. "Fine" she'd typed back earlier, but the truth was, she'd been hiding in the bathroom for fifteen minutes.

"Alright, who's doing the jump?" Tyler shouted, climbing onto the diving board. "Last one in buys pizza later. That's not up for debate, that's the law."

"That's literally not a law, you're full of **bull**," Emma's crush, Sam, called out, and everyone laughed. Sam. Who'd sat next to her in English all semester and always drew little dinosaurs in the margins of his notes. Sam, who was now watching her with this weird expression she couldn't read.

Emma's heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat. She could grab her bag and walk home. She could fake sick. She could keep pretending.

Or she could just admit she was scared.

"Actually," Emma said, her voice shaking a little, "I can't really swim. Like, at all. So."

The silence was worse than she'd imagined. For like three whole seconds, nobody said anything. Emma's face burned so hot she thought she might literally combust, right there on the concrete edge of Tyler's fancy pool, in front of everyone.

Then Sam slid into the water beside her. "I can't swim either," he said, like it was nothing. "I never learned. It's on my list of things to figure out, along with taxes and why coffee tastes like dirt."

Madison rolled her eyes. "Okay, Sam doesn't count, he also thinks TikTok is a ""confusing"" concept."

"But actually," Tyler said, and for once he wasn't being loud, "we could teach you? If you wanted? Like, the shallow end's literally right there."

Emma looked around. Nobody was laughing. Nobody was on their phone. They were just... waiting.

"Yeah," she said, surprised at how steady her voice came out. "Actually, I'd like that."

The **water** was cold at first, then not. Sam stayed in the shallow end with her, making terrible jokes about how they were basically Olympians in training. Tyler showed her how to float, which felt weird and scary and also kind of amazing. Madison even took that one picture of Emma actually grinning, mid-float, looking more relaxed than she had in months.

Later, eating the pizza she definitely didn't have to pay for, Emma realized something: Sometimes the scariest thing wasn't the deep end. It was letting people see you standing at the edge, afraid to jump.

And sometimes, those same people would jump in right beside you.