Orange Soda Saturday

Maya stood by the snack table, clutching a warm can of ORANGE soda like it was a lifeline. The backyard was chaos—kids cannonballing into the pool, music thumping, someone's unleashed CAT dodging between lawn chairs like it owned the place.

"Hey, you gonna swim or what?" Jake called from the pool edge. Jake. The Jake she'd been lowkey obsessing over since September. His hair was wet, and he was grinning like he didn't just completely ruin her vibe.

"Maybe later!" she called back, voice cracking. Smooth. Real smooth.

Her best friend Riley appeared at her elbow, damp and disgusting. "Girl, you've been hovering over that nacho plate for twenty minutes. The WATER'S fine, I promise."

"I'm good," Maya said. "Just... enjoying the atmosphere."

"The atmosphere is chlorine and desperation," Riley said. "Just get in already. You're literally making it weird."

Maya's phone buzzed. Group chat: everyone complaining about how cold the WATER was, how someone's CAT kept trying to drink from the cups, how Jordan brought ORANGE soda instead of actual drinks like a normie.

She thought about how she'd spent her whole life watching from the edges. Always "maybe later," always "I'm good," always safe.

Jake was climbing out of the pool, shaking WATER from his hair like the neighbor's CAT whenever it got caught in the rain. He caught her eye. Smiled.

Maya set down her ORANGE soda.

"You know what?" she said.

Riley raised an eyebrow. "What?"

Maya kicked off her flip-flops. "I'm getting in."

She didn't cannonball. She didn't make a scene. She just slipped in, cool WATER enveloping her like a second skin. And when she surfaced, Jake was there, treading WATER, grinning.

"Took you long enough," he said.

Maya grinned back. "Yeah, well. I had to finish my soda first."

The CAT yowled somewhere from the porch. The playlist switched to something better. Maya finally stopped watching from the edges.