Poolside Panic

The chlorine **water** lapped against the pool's edge, matching the nervous rhythm in my chest. I stood there in my one-piece from last season—definitely not two-piece material—while everyone else looked like they'd stepped out of an Instagram feed. My **hair** had already given up the fight against humidity, frizzing out like I'd stuck my finger in an electrical socket.

"Yo, check it," Tyler announced, sprawling across a pool chair like he owned the place. "My cousin's roommate's brother basically invented TikTok."

Complete **bull**. We all knew it. But everyone nodded anyway because Tyler had that kind of energy—confident, loud, wrong in the most convincing way possible.

I took a sip of my **orange** soda, the kind that stained your tongue and tasted like childhood summers that felt a million years away. The plastic cup sweated in my hand, another layer of moisture I didn't need.

"You gonna swim or what?" Sophia appeared beside me, all perfect waves and effortless cool. She was the reason I'd even come—why I'd spent forty-five minutes trying to tame my hair, why I'd worn this swimsuit that made me feel equal parts exposed and invisible.

"I'm good," I lied.

"Bullshit," she said, grinning. "You're scared Tyler's gonna subject you to his 'almost famous' stories next."

A laugh escaped before I could stop it. Suddenly Sophia was yanking me toward the pool, both of us screaming, and we hit the **water** in a tangle of limbs and laughter. My hair billowed around me like a weird halo. My orange soda floated away in its cup, joining the collective chaos of floaties and noodles.

When we surfaced, gasping and dripping, Sophia's perfect waves were plastered to her forehead. My hair looked exactly the same—just wet. Tyler was still talking, but nobody was listening anymore.

"Better?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said, and actually meant it. "Way better."

Some moments just click. Sometimes you have to let yourself get pulled in, let your hair do whatever it wants, let the soda spill, let someone's obvious BS slide because you're too busy making actual memories to care. And sometimes, weirdly enough, that's when everything starts to make sense.