Poolside Apocalypse

The chlorine smell hit me before I even saw the water. Miller's End-of-Summer Blowout, already in full swing. I stood there in my trunks that were slightly too tight, feeling like I'd walked onto the set of a movie I hadn't auditioned for.

"Yo! Marcus!" Miller yelled from the diving board. He was doing that thing where he acted like we'd been best friends since kindergarten, which we had, but something had shifted over the summer. Something in the air between us, or maybe just in my head.

I waved. Made my way to the edge of the pool where everyone was already **swimming**—Miller, Chloe, the rest of the crew. Chloe's hair was wet and slicked back, droplets running down her neck like she was in some slow-motion music video.

I'd spent all summer playing **baseball**, practicing my swing until my palms were raw, hoping she'd notice. She hadn't. Not once.

"Marcus, you coming in or what?" Miller called.

I shook my head. "Nah, I'm good."

"Since when do you not swim?"

Since I realized that jumping into a pool with your crush and your friends who were all subtly coupling off while you're still single feels like walking into a **zombie** apocalypse without any weapons. That's since when.

I ended up on the patio with Hannah, Miller's weird cousin who'd spent the entire summer reading tarot cards and talking about crystals. She was sitting cross-legged on a lawn chair, **palm** up, like she was waiting for something to land in it.

"You're not swimming," she said. It wasn't a question.

"Not really feeling it."

She patted the chair next to her. "Sit. I'll read your palm."

I laughed. "You serious?"

"Deadly."

So I sat. She took my hand, traced the lines with fingers that smelled like incense and something sweet, maybe vanilla. Her touch was light, careful, like she was handling something fragile.

"You've got a long life line," she said quietly. "But your heart line... it's complicated."

"What's that mean?"

She looked up, and her eyes were this intense brown, like she was seeing straight through me. "It means you're carrying something. Something you haven't said."

I swallowed. Looked back at the pool, where Chloe was laughing at something Miller said, her head thrown back, water gleaming on her shoulders.

"Yeah," I said. "Something like that."

Hannah squeezed my hand once, then let go. "The thing about apocalypses," she said, "is that someone always survives. Usually the ones who stop fighting it and start building something new."

I looked at her. Really looked at her, for the first time all summer.

"You want to get ice cream?" I asked. "There's that place down the street."

She smiled, and it was this small, genuine thing that made something in my chest loosen.

"Yeah," she said. "I'd like that."

We left Miller's party without saying goodbye, walked down the street in our bare feet, the August heat rising off the pavement. Behind us, I could hear them all laughing, splashing, living their normal lives in that chlorine-scented pool.

And for the first time all summer, I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything at all.