Green Teeth, Golden Hour

The universe has a terrible sense of timing. Really, it does.

I'm standing at the deep end of Carter's pool party, clutching my iphone like a lifeline, when Jayden — the human equivalent of a golden retriever — finally looks my way. We've been flirting in Spanish III for weeks, and this is it. The moment.

"Hey, Maya," he says, dripping wet and devastatingly handsome. "You coming in?"

This would be perfect, except for three things. One: I forgot to pack a swimsuit, so I'm in cutoff shorts and an oversized tee. Two: his ex, Brianna, is glaring at me from the diving board like I personally offended her ancestors. And three: I had that massive spinach and artichoke dip at lunch and have been paranoid about green teeth stains for three hours.

"Just taking photos," I lie, holding up my phone. "For the 'gram."

He shrugs. "Suit yourself."

And then — BECAUSE THE HATEFUL UNIVERSE HATES ME — Carter's cat, Mochi, who has been dramatically stalking around the pool edge like a tiny furry drama queen, decides this is her moment. She pounces at a butterfly, misjudges the trajectory, and goes full feline chaos mode straight into the water.

Everyone screams. My phone slips. I lunge for it like I'm defusing a bomb.

I catch it — but my shorts don't catch the edge. I faceplant into the pool in the most ungraceful moment of my life, surfacing to laughter, a soaking cat paddling angrily toward the steps, and Brianna cackling like she just won the lottery.

Jayden's laughing too, but he's also helping me up, and his hand is warm and he's looking at my wet hair and cutoffs like I'm not a complete disaster.

"You saved your phone," he says. "That's honestly kind of badass."

I check my reflection in the black screen. No spinach in my teeth. My mascara's running down my face like tiny emo tears, but somehow, I've never felt more real.

"Yeah," I say, finally letting myself grin. "I guess it was."

Sometimes the universe hates you. Sometimes it throws you in a pool with a wet cat and an audience. But sometimes — just sometimes — that disaster is exactly what you need to stop performing and start living.