Poolside Confessions

I never thought I'd be standing at the deep end in a Speedy that was definitely two sizes too small, watching Tyler from chemistry do laps like he was part fish. Meanwhile, I was part brick.

"You coming in or what?" Maya called from the lane next to me, already paddling like she'd been born in chlorine.

I dipped my toe in. Cold. Obviously. The pool at the YMCA was always kept at "refreshing" which really meant "hypothermia-inducing."

The thing was, I had reasons to be afraid of water. Reasons that involved a goldfish.

Okay, not a real goldfish. But in sixth grade, I'd gotten so nervous during the mandatory swimming unit that I'd accidentally inhaled half the pool through my nose, and Chad Miller had dubbed me "Goldfish Breath" for the next two years. The nickname died when we got to high school, but the feeling didn't.

Until now.

"Hey, aren't you gonna take your vitamin?" Maya asked between laps.

I fished around in my swim bag and pulled out the neon orange gummy vitamin my mom packed every morning. Because apparently at sixteen, I still needed immune support. I shoved it in my mouth, chewed aggressively. It tasted like artificial orange and shame.

"Your mom still packs those?" Tyler surfaced near us, water dripping from hair that was somehow perfect even wet. "That's kinda cute, no lie."

My face burned. I blamed it on the indoor pool humidity.

"Whatever," I muttered, and finally—FINALLY—jumped in.

The shock of cold. The blur of underwater. And then I was moving. Not gracefully, not like Tyler or Maya, but moving. Swimming. My arms remembered what my brain had forgotten. Stroke, breathe, stroke, breathe.

When I surfaced, gasping, Maya high-fived me. Tyler nodded, actual respect in his eyes.

"Not bad for someone who nearly drowned in the shallow end last week," he said.

"I did NOT nearly drown," I protested, but I was grinning. "I was... experiencing buoyancy uncertainty."

"Sure, Goldfish Breath," he laughed, but it was different this time. Friendly. Like we were all in this together—me, Maya, Tyler, and the pool that wasn't so scary after all.

I fished another vitamin gummy from my bag. Success flavor. My favorite.