Goldfish at the Pool Party

Maya's iphone buzzed in her pocket, screen lighting up with 'Pool Party @ Jake's!!! 💦🎉' but all she could think about was how she didn't own a swimsuit that fit right anymore. Not since eighth grade, not since everything started changing and nothing fit like it used to.

Her brother's goldfish, Bubbles, stared at her through the bowl on her desk. That's how she felt sometimes—just swimming in circles, mouth opening and closing, saying nothing that mattered.

'You going?' Her mom called from the hallway.

'Maybe.' Maya texted back: 'idk might be awk lol' even though she'd already typed and deleted seventeen other responses.

At the party, everyone was already swimming, laughing, shoving each other into the water. Jake spotted her from the pool, hair plastered to his forehead like a wet seal. 'Maya! Finally! Get in here!'

She clutched her iphone like a shield. 'I'm good.'

'Don't be boring,' said Chloe, floating on an inflatable flamingo with three other girls from math class. The ones who always sat together at lunch, speaking their own language.

Maya's phone slipped. Her heart stopped as it arced through the air, splashing into the deep end.

'My phone!' she shrieked, and before she could think about it, she dove in.

The water swallowed her whole. For a second, everything was muffled and blue and peaceful, like being inside a dream. She opened her eyes and saw her iphone sinking through the chlorine-blue water, screen still glowing faintly, like some deep-sea creature descending to the bottom.

She grabbed it and surfaced, gasping.

Everyone stared.

Then Jake started laughing. 'Dude, you just full-on dove in. That was legendary.'

Chloe and the others were giggling too, but not mean-giggling. Like, actually giggling.

'You're soaked,' Jake said, splashing water at her.

Maya looked at her ruined phone, then at her soaking clothes, then at everyone waiting for her reaction. And something cracked open inside her—not the phone, something else.

She splashed back. 'Yeah, well, you look like a drowned rat.'

'OH IT'S ON,' Jake yelled, and suddenly they were all swimming and screaming and Maya wasn't thinking about how she looked or whether she fit or what anyone thought. She was just there, in the water, part of it.

Later, they'd order pizza and sit around the pool with their feet in the water, and Maya would learn that Chloe's nickname was 'Goldfish' because she once swallowed a fish cracker whole and it got stuck in her braces for three days. They'd all laugh until their sides hurt, and Maya would realize she'd spent the whole evening thinking about herself and her phone, when the real thing—the thing she'd been scared to dive into—was just being there.

But that came later. Right now, she was just swimming.