Fox in the Chlorine

The pool party was supposed to be my comeback moment. After spending freshman year as basically a ghost, I promised myself: this summer, new Maya. Confident Maya. The Maya who actually talks to people without overthinking every syllable three times in her head first.

"Maya! You swimming or what?" Chen yelled from the diving board, water dripping from his perfect hair. Ugh. Why did he have to be so annoyingly cute?

"Yeah! Just... fixing my hair!" I lied. My hair was fine. My stomach was doing gymnastics.

I dipped my toes in the pool. Cold. Like, ice-cold. But Chen was watching, so I jumped. Big mistake. The force sent me shooting underwater, and when I surfaced, my bikini top had, uh, shifted. Let's just say I flashed half the sophomore class.

"Nice dive!" someone called out. I wanted to dissolve into the chlorine.

That's when Buster—Ms. Reynolds' golden retriever—burst through the gate, barking like he'd just won the lottery. He dove straight into the pool, paddling toward me like I was his personal rescue mission. Everyone laughed. I laughed too, mostly to keep from crying.

"Buster!" His owner came running after him. "Sorry! He's obsessed with swimming!"

I doggy-paddled to the edge, mortified. But then Chen swam over. "Hey, that was legendary. Seriously."

"Legendary terrible?" I muttered.

"No, just... legendary." He grinned. "Wanna play padel later? My cousin left their racket at my place."

Padel? Since when did Chen play padel? Since when did I? "I've literally never played in my life."

"Perfect. Neither have I." He splashed me. "We'll be terrible together."

I was about to respond when something moved near the fence. A fox—actual fox, ginger fur and pointy ears—stared at us like we were the weirdest thing it had ever seen. It tilted its head, then trotted away like it had better places to be.

"Did you see that?" I whispered.

"The fox?" Chen's face lit up. "Dude, that's been roaming the neighborhood all summer. My mom says it's good luck."

Good luck. Maybe the universe was giving me a break.

"So," I said, treading water. "Padel?"

"Padel," he confirmed. "Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow."

I climbed out of the pool, dripping and awkward, and somehow it didn't matter. The fox knew what was up. This was going to be my summer after all.