Last Summer Before Everything Changed

The heat hit Jake's face like a physical weight as he dragged the heavy coiled **cable** across the backyard. "Yo, you need help with that?" Maya called from where she sat on the pool deck, legs dangling in the water. She was wearing this bright **orange** bikini that made Jake's stomach do weird little flips he'd been trying to ignore all summer.

"Nah, I got it," Jake lied, nearly tripping over his own feet. Maya raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow at him. The speakers were for Emma's birthday party—some big deal that their entire friend group had been hyping up for weeks. Jake still felt like the awkward new kid who'd transferred in sophomore year, even though he'd known them for months now.

"Hey,**bear** with me here," Tyler said, stumbling out of the back door with a giant ice cream cake. "This thing weighs like fifty pounds." Jake rushed over to help, their hands brushing. Tyler didn't notice the way Jake's pulse kicked up, but Maya did. She always noticed everything.

By midnight, most people had left. Jake found himself floating in the **pool**, staring up at the stars with Maya and Tyler. The water was perfect, that magical temperature where you could stay in forever. His phone buzzed in his shorts on the deck—probably his mom checking in, again.

"So," Maya said, splashing water at him. "You gonna tell us what's actually up with you, or are we gonna pretend you haven't been weird all summer?"

Jake laughed, letting himself sink under the water for a second. When he came up, gasping, everything spilled out—how he still felt like an outsider, how he didn't know who he was yet, how everything felt like it was changing too fast. Maya and Tyler just listened, really listened, in that way that makes you feel seen for the first time.

"Bro," Tyler said finally, "we're all figuring it out. Nobody knows what they're doing."

They stayed in the pool until their fingers pruned, talking about everything and nothing. As Jake walked home under the streetlights, still damp and smelling like chlorine, something shifted. Not dramatically, but enough. He didn't have everything figured out—probably never would—but suddenly, that seemed okay.