Poolside Panic

The chlorine smell hit me before I even stepped through the gate. Jessica's annual pool party. The event of the season, where social hierarchies were established faster than you could say "cannonball."

"You good, Emma?" Maya asked, bumping my shoulder with hers. My best friend since third grade, currently wearing the most confident bikini I'd ever seen.

"Totally," I lied, clutching my cover-up like a safety blanket. This was the summer between middle school and high school. Everything felt like the first day of school, but wetter.

The problem wasn't the pool itself. I could swim fine. The problem was the braces. The shiny, new, metal-mouth monstrosities that had turned me into a self-conscious mess. And then there was the spinach dip.

Jessica's mom had made that fancy spinach artichoke dip from Whole Foods. The one everyone swore was "grown-up" and "sophisticated." I'd spent twenty minutes in front of the bathroom mirror before leaving home, practicing my open-mouth smile without looking like a metal detector's dream.

"Emma, come in!" Tyler waved from the deep end. Tyler, who'd sat next to me in science class all year and never once noticed my existence, was suddenly waving at me like I was his long-lost friend.

I walked over to the dip table. Just one bite. Show everyone I was chill, not the girl who brought her own braces wax everywhere.

"Hey Emma," Jessica appeared beside me, all effortless grace and social confidence. "Love your swimsuit. So... brave."

Brave. The word hit harder than the time I'd face-planted off the diving board in fifth grade.

I took a chip, scooped way too much spinach dip, and ate it. And then it happened. That familiar, horrible sensation. Something green and leafy and undeniable was stuck in my braces.

I felt it before I saw it in my reflection in the sliding glass door. A giant chunk of spinach, prominently displayed across my front teeth, like some kind of vegetarian horror movie.

I froze. This was it. This was my legacy. The girl with spinach in her braces at Jessica's pool party. They'd write songs about me.

"Emma, you have something—" Tyler started, coming over.

I did what any rational fifteen-year-old would do. I sprinted toward the pool, phone clutched in my hand, and did a perfect dive into the deep end. Underwater, the world was muffled and peaceful. I scrubbed at my teeth with my tongue, feeling the spinach dislodge and float away into the chlorinated abyss.

When I surfaced, spluttering, Maya was laughing so hard she almost fell in herself.

"Did you just—" she wheezed. "Did you just dive in to save yourself from spinach-in-braces embarrassment?"

"Maybe," I said, slicking my wet hair back. "Whatever works."

Tyler was grinning from the side of the pool. "That was actually kind of badass."

Jessica looked unimpressed, but I didn't care. I floated on my back, watching the clouds drift overhead, and realized that sometimes the only way to survive the most embarrassing moments of your life was to dive straight into them.

Literally.