Poolside Apocalypse

Maya stood at the edge of the pool, clutching her phone like a lifeline. The summer party was in full swing—someone's playlist blasting, that one guy from chemistry doing cannonballs off the diving board. Maya wasn't even supposed to be here. Her parents thought she was at Jordan's house studying for finals.

"Yo Maya! Get in here!" Jamie called, splashing water in her direction. His hair was dripping, that one stubborn curl falling over his forehead exactly the same way it did when they'd partnered up for that Spanish presentation last month. The presentation where they'd both forgotten every vocabulary word and ended up freestyling in broken English for three minutes. Maya still cringed thinking about it.

"Maybe later," Maya managed, her voice barely audible over the music. She'd been feeling like a zombie all week, staying up until 3 AM every night scrolling through conspiracy theories about the school's new dress code policy and stress-eating cuties. The bags under her eyes had bags.

Her phone buzzed. A text from her actual study buddy, Riley: *did u hear about the padel tournament? coach says we need a third player for mixed doubles*

Padel. Of course. The sport everyone had suddenly gotten obsessed with this summer, like the universe had collectively decided tennis wasn't stressful enough. Maya had never played, but Riley had been trying to recruit her for weeks, saying she had "natural hand-eye coordination" and "could definitely beat Ethan's lanky butt."

"What's that face?" Jamie appeared beside her, dripping pool water onto the concrete. "You look like you just saw a ghost. Or worse—like you remembered that English essay."

Maya snorted. "Ha. Ha. Very funny. For your information, I was just thinking about how I promised Riley I'd try out for padel doubles with her tomorrow."

"Wait, seriously?" Jamie's eyes lit up. "That's actually not terrible. I play Saturdays at the rec center with some guys. We could, like, practice or whatever. If you wanted."

Her stomach did that annoying fluttery thing it always did when Jamie talked to her for more than thirty seconds. "Oh. Cool. Yeah, maybe."

A giant orange beach ball whapped into Jamie's back. He turned around to see Lucas grinning like an idiot from the hot tub. "Incoming! Sorry not sorry!"

"My bad," Jamie said, grabbing the ball. "Anyway, you should come. It's fun. Plus, Ethan is the actual worst and you should definitely beat him."

"I'll think about it," Maya said, but she was already mentally recalculating her entire weekend schedule.

"Hey, remember my goldfish?" Jamie asked suddenly. "From freshman year biology? The one that survived for like three years against all odds?"

"Goldie? Yeah, what about it?"

"He finally died last week. My mom flushed him. It was emotional."

Maya laughed. "You named your fish Goldie? How original."

"Hey, I was fourteen! Give me a break." Jamie grinned, and Maya felt something warm and unfamiliar bloom in her chest. "Anyway, what I'm saying is, life is short. Might as well try new things. Like padel. Or actual swimming. Instead of standing by the edge looking suspicious."

Maya looked at the pool, the water rippling with movement and laughter and terrible music choices. She looked at Jamie, who was still smiling at her with that annoyingly cute curl plastered to his forehead.

"Fine," she said, kicking off her flip-flops. "But if I drown, you're explaining to my parents why I wasn't at Jordan's studying."

"Deal." Jamie grinned. "Also, you're totally going to beat Ethan at padel. I have faith."

Maya jumped in, phone clutched in one hand above the water, and thought that maybe, just maybe, this wouldn't be the worst summer after all.