Pool Party Panic

The bull**** started slipping out of my mouth before I could stop it.

"Yeah, I was totally on swim team. Made varsity freshman year," I told Kayla, who I'd been crushing on since April. She was having a pool party for her sweet sixteen, and apparently not knowing how to swim wasn't an option.

"That's so cool!" Kayla's eyes lit up. "You should totally show us your butterfly stroke!"

I was already regretting everything.

Summer in Texas meant ninety-degree heat and pool parties you couldn't say no to. My plan had been simple: hang out on the edge, look mysterious, maybe dip my feet in, definitely avoid drowning. Then Kayla's golden retriever, Buster, decided he was part of the entertainment.

The dog galloped through the sliding glass door, soaking wet and shaking his fur like he'd just won the canine Olympics. Water sprayed everywhere. Everyone laughed. I laughed too, but it came out as this weird choked sound.

Then the sky opened up.

Thunder cracked directly overhead. The weather app had predicted a 10% chance of rain, because weather apps are full of lies. One minute it was sunny, the next minute lightning was streaking across the sky like someone had ripped the atmosphere in half.

"Everyone inside!" Kayla's mom yelled, but nobody heard her over another thunder boom.

And that's when I made it worse.

Buster, still zooming around like a furry maniac, knocked me backward while I was standing at the pool's edge. My phone was in my pocket. My life was over.

I went down.

The water hit me like ice. I sank, flailing, inhaling pool water, absolutely panicking. My eyes stung. My lungs burned. I was dying at Kayla's sweet sixteen.

Then something grabbed my shirt.

I surfaced, gasping, to see Kayla's older brother, Jared, who definitely knew I'd been lying about varsity swim. Everyone knew. The lifeguard chair was empty—Jared had been on shift.

"You good?" he asked, pulling me to the shallow end.

I couldn't breathe enough to answer. My face burned hotter than the summer air.

Buster stood on the edge barking at me like I'd just performed the greatest trick ever.

"Hey," Kayla said from the patio, while lightning flashed behind her, making her look like some kind of cool movie protagonist. "You want to learn? My brother can teach you. He's actually the varsity captain."

I wiped water from my eyes. "I'd love that."

Sometimes the most embarrassing moments are exactly what you need to stop pretending.

And yeah, I learned to swim that summer. But more importantly, I learned that lying about who you are is way more exhausting than just being yourself—even when being yourself means almost drowning at a pool party while a dog barks at you.