Orange Summer Skies

The pool party raged around me, but I stood frozen at the edge, clutching my towel like a lifeline. Everyone else was already swimming, laughing, splashing — doing normal teenage things with normal teenage confidence. Meanwhile, I was mentally calculating the exact angle I'd need to enter the water without making a complete fool of myself.

"You coming in or what?" Marcus called, doing a spectacularly uncool cannonball that somehow still looked cool. Because Marcus was Marcus, and he'd been flirting with Sarah all summer while I'd been busy existing in her general direction without ever actually speaking to her.

"Yeah, yeah, just warming up," I lied, straight-faced. Because admitting I was having a minor panic attack about taking my shirt off in front of everyone wasn't exactly the vibe.

That's when Sarah's cat, some calico nightmare she'd smuggled outside, decided the patio umbrella was its personal climbing gym. It scrambled up, claws extended, and the whole thing collapsed sideways — directly onto the nacho table.

"BARNABES!" Sarah shrieked, which was apparently the cat's name.

Chaos erupted. Someone knocked over an orange soda. Nachos went everywhere. And in the middle of it all, Marcus was laughing so hard he fell into the pool fully clothed, still clutching a bag of chips.

"That's bull," I muttered, but I was already moving toward the mess, because my mom raised me right and I couldn't just watch Sarah deal with this disaster alone.

We ended up sitting on the pool deck, soaking wet from trying to save the nachos, sharing a single rescue float while Barnabies licked orange Fanta off his paw. Sarah's hair was plastered to her face, and she had nacho cheese somewhere in her eyebrow, and I'd never seen anyone look more beautiful.

"Thanks for helping," she said, quiet.

"No problem," I said, trying to sound chill instead of like my heart was doing backflips. "Better than swimming in nacho cheese anyway."

She laughed, and maybe — just maybe — summer wasn't a total disaster after all.