Green in the Gills

The pool party at Tyler's house was supposed to be my chance. Finally. After two months of Instagram creeping and carefully timed locker-room walks, I'd scored an invite. I even borrowed Jake's expensive swim trunks – the ones with the embroidered pineapples that apparently made me look "chill."

But standing at the edge of the pool, clutching a red solo cup like it was a life preserver, I felt exactly like what I was: a fraud who'd barely doggy-paddled through sixth-grade swim lessons. Everyone else was cannonballing and effortlessly gliding underwater, while I was calculating how long I could stand there pretending to check my phone before someone noticed I wasn't actually swimming.

"Yo Marcus, you gonna hop in or what?" Tyler called out, doing some casual backstroke that made it look like he was born in chlorinated water.

"Yeah, just, uh, warming up," I said, even though it was ninety degrees and I was sweating through my t-shirt.

Then my stomach growled. Loudly. Because in my pre-party panic, I'd forgotten to eat anything except the smoothie my mom made that morning – something about "eating your vegetables" and "getting ready for growth spurts." She'd packed it with spinach, kale, and something green that I'd chosen not to identify.

I grabbed a plate from the snack table, desperate for anything that wasn't leaf-based. Piled it high with chips, grabbed a soda, and started eating like I'd been stranded on a desert island.

Bad timing. Tyler's cousin Maya did this massive cannonball right as I took a particularly ambitious chip-and-dip combo. The splash hit me like a physical force. I choked, coughed, and suddenly realized something was very wrong.

There was spinach. In my teeth. From the smoothie. Bright green, unmistakable, stuck between my front two teeth like I was some kind of gap-toothed rabbit who'd just finished a salad.

I'd been walking around with green stuff in my teeth for hours. At school. At lunch. Walking past Jordan in the hallway like I owned the place. All while smiling like an idiot.

"You good?" Maya asked, surfacing near me.

I made a split-second decision. I jumped in the pool.

The shock of cold water was actually kind of amazing. I came up sputtering, and for the first time all day, I wasn't overthinking. I was just a wet guy in pineapple trunks who'd potentially humiliated himself in front of half the sophomore class.

"Marcus!" Maya was laughing. "You have – " She pointed at her own teeth.

"Yeah, I know," I said, wiping my face. "Trust me, I know."

But then everyone was laughing with me, not at me, and Tyler tossed me a goggles and challenged me to a race I definitely couldn't win. And for the first time all summer, I wasn't watching from the edge. I was in the water, chlorine burning my eyes, completely uncool, and actually having fun.

Sometimes the most embarrassing moments are the ones that finally break the surface.