Green Skin Summer

My mom decided we were doing a "health reset" which basically meant I'd be eating raw spinach salad for every meal until I moved out. So there I was, at Tyler's end-of-summer pool party, trying to look chill while strategically hiding a container of wilted greens behind a beach towel.

"Yo Marcus, you gonna swim or what?" Tyler called from the diving board. Everyone was watching. Because of course they were.

I hadn't taken my shirt off in public since seventh grade, when someone pointed out I looked like a "zombie from that one video game" thanks to my pale skin and general awkwardness. Three years later, I'd grown like six inches and filled out some, but the insecurity? That stuck.

"Maybe later," I said, which is what I always said. Later never came.

Jenna Prescott, who'd been my lab partner all sophomore year and knew way too much about my various inadequacies, sat down next to me. She was wearing this vintage band tee and had somehow managed to make wet hair look intentional.

"Your mom's still doing that whole organic thing?" she asked, nodding at my spinach.

"Unfortunately."

"My parents are doing keto. Our fridge is just meat and cheese. It's depressing." She popped a grape in her mouth. "You know, you could just swim in your shirt. No one cares."

"I'd look like a zombie trying to pass as human," I said, then immediately regretted it.

Jenna laughed. Actually laughed. "Dude, half the people here look like zombies. Have you seen Tyler after a gaming marathon?"

So I jumped in. Shirt and all. The spinach stayed safely on dry land, but something else washed away in that pool—the version of me that believed everyone was constantly judging every little thing. Turns out, no one actually noticed the pale kid in the shirt. They were too busy being worried about their own stuff.

By the time school started two weeks later, I'd learned two things: green vegetables won't actually kill you, and the only thing worse than looking like a zombie is living like one—always watching, never doing. Some things you just have to dive into, even if you're not ready. Even if you're terrified. Especially then.