Drowning in the Shallow End

Maya stood at the edge of the pool party like she'd accidentally wandered into the wrong reality show. The backyard was a sea of Instagram perfect—girls in matching bikinis, guys doing cannonballs that definitely weren't as cool as they thought. She adjusted her oversized snapback, pulling it lower. The hat was her shield, hiding both the haircut disaster she'd given herself yesterday and the fact that she was fully clothed while everyone else was basically in their underwear.

"Maya! You coming in or what?" Jake called from the pool. He was dripping wet, laughing like this was the best night of his life.

"Yeah, just—forgot my suit," she lied, backing toward the gate. This was stupid. She should never have come.

That's when the dog appeared.

It wasn't anyone's dog—just this massive, muddy golden retriever that bounded through the open gate like it owned the place. The dog made a beeline for the snack table, grabbed a bag of chips in its mouth, and took off toward the pool.

Everyone froze. Then someone screamed. Then everyone was scrambling.

Maya moved without thinking—years of soccer kicking in as she sprinted after the dog, chasing it around the pool, through the crowd, past where Jake was hauling himself out of the water. Her hat flew off somewhere, revealing the chopped-up mess underneath, but she didn't care. She finally tackled the dog—gently—and got the chip bag away from it.

"Holy crap," someone said.

Maya looked up, panting, hair everywhere, soaking wet from chasing the dog around the pool's edge. Everyone was staring.

Then Jake started laughing. Not mean laughing. Real laughing. "Did you just—did you just outrun a dog to save Stacy's Cool Ranch Doritos?"

Maya looked at the bag in her hand. At the dog, now sitting innocently by her feet. At the crowd around the pool, all looking at her like she'd just done something legendary.

"Yeah," she said, and then she was laughing too. "Yeah, I did."

"That was literally so badass," said this girl Chloe who'd barely spoken to Maya all year. "You're like—fast."

"Soccer," Maya shrugged, suddenly hyper-aware her hat was gone and her hair was a disaster. But no one was looking at her hair. They were looking at her.

"We need you on our team for chicken fights," Jake decided. "Obviously."

And just like that, Maya wasn't the awkward girl in the hat anymore. She was the girl who'd saved the chips from the dog. She was part of it. She took off her shoes, jumped into the pool, and let herself finally stop standing at the edge.