Deep End, Shallow Breath

Marcus stood at the edge of Chloe's pool, clutching his phone like a life preserver. The annual end-of-summer blowout was in full swing—literally. Kids were doing cannonballs off the diving board, someone's Spotify playlist was bumping from portable speakers, and somewhere, a dog was barking its head off.

"You coming in or what?" Jenna yelled from the water, splashing him.

"I'm good!" Marcus called back, lying through his teeth. The truth was, he hadn't gone swimming in like three years, and the last time he'd attempted a dive, he'd done this awkward belly flop that still haunted his dreams.

His younger sister Maya had forced him to take her gummy vitamin that morning—some "energy booster" she swore by—and he was pretty sure it was just making him jittery.

Then he saw him.

Tyler.

Tyler, who played varsity baseball and wore his uniform jersey to school on game days and had this smile that made Marcus's stomach do actual gymnastics. Tyler was standing near the snack table, looking unfairly good in his swim trunks, throwing a baseball up and catching it repeatedly. Casual. Intentional. Devastating.

I'm going to talk to him. You're going to talk to him. Go.

Marcus took a breath and started toward the snack table, rehearsing something cool in his head. Hey, nice arm. No, that's weird. You play baseball? No, everyone knows that—

Suddenly, Chloe's golden retriever came barreling out of nowhere, chasing after something, and slammed right into Marcus's legs. He stumbled forward, arms flailing, and knocked directly into Tyler. They both went down in a tangle of limbs onto the grass, Tyler's baseball rolling away under a lounge chair.

The pool area went silent.

Marcus's face burned. This was it. The social death penalty. He'd literally collided with his crush, fallen on top of him, and—

Tyler started laughing. Not mean laughing. Actual laughing, head thrown back, shoulders shaking.

"Dude, Buster's a menace," Tyler said, sitting up and wiping grass from his arm. "You okay?"

Marcus's brain had officially left the chat. "Yeah. I mean. The dog. Yes. I'm good. Hi."

"Hi." Tyler's grin was somehow even better up close. "I'm Tyler, by the way. Even though we've had pre-calc together all year."

"I know!" Marcus said too loudly. "I mean. I'm Marcus. We sit three rows apart."

Tyler was still smiling at him, and then—miraculously—he held out a hand to pull Marcus up. "You wanna throw the baseball around? Unless you have to..." He nodded toward the pool.

"Nope." Marcus let Tyler pull him up, their hands lingering for maybe one second longer than necessary. "Free as a bird."

They spent the next hour tossing the baseball back and forth, talking about everything and nothing. Tyler admitted he was failing pre-calc. Marcus confessed he was terrified of the deep end. When Jenna finally shoved Marcus into the pool fully clothed, Tyler jumped in after him.

Marcus walked home that afternoon with grass stains on his knees, chlorine in his hair, and Tyler's number written on his arm in Sharpie. For the first time in forever, he didn't feel like he was swimming upstream.

He was just swimming.