Diving In

Maya stood at the edge of the **pool**, clutching her towel like a security blanket. The water sparkled with that fake turquoise brilliance that only existed in suburban backyards, and everyone else was already splashing around like they'd been born in it. She pulled her baseball **hat** down lower, as if the bill could somehow make her invisible.

"You coming in or what?" called Jake, the human embodiment of confidence. He was doing a cannonball that would definitely displace half the water onto the concrete.

"Maybe later," Maya muttered, checking her **iPhone** for the fifteenth time. No new notifications. Obviously. Her charging cable was fraying at home, threatening to abandon her any day now, much like her social life seemed to be doing.

The real problem wasn't the pool. It was the swimsuit. It was the fact that last summer she'd worn a one-piece without thinking twice, and now suddenly everything was different. Bodies were different. Expectations were different. Jake and his friends were showing off their attempts at abs. The girls had somehow transformed into Instagram filters come to life. And Maya was just... Maya.

Her phone buzzed. Her mom, sending one of those texts that managed to be both loving and devastatingly uncool at the same time: *"Have fun! Love you!"* with a crying-laughing emoji that Maya was pretty sure her mom didn't know how to use correctly.

She looked up. Jake was doggy-paddling toward her, looking like a determined golden retriever. "The water's actually not that cold, I promise. Well, maybe I'm lying. It's freezing. But you get used to it."

Maya looked at her phone. She looked at the pool. She looked at Jake, who was genuinely smiling, not mocking her hesitation. Something in her chest loosened.

She set her phone on the poolside table—carefully, because she'd dropped it in the parking lot last month and the screen was already held together by hope and a cheap protector. She took off her hat.

"Okay," she said. "But I'm not doing a cannonball."

"Baby steps," Jake agreed, grinning. "Baby steps."

Maya slid into the water, and it was cold, shocking and alive all at once. And for the first time all summer, she didn't feel like she was holding her breath.