Poolside Paranormal

The community pool was my sanctuary that summer, especially after Jake moved to the other side of town and left me stranded in our friend group's awkward aftermath. I spent hours floating in the **water**, pretending I was some mysterious creature who didn't need human interaction. Instead, I became something weirder: a poolside **spy**.

My target was Maya, the new lifeguard with purple streaks in her hair and a smile that made my chest do that stupid fluttery thing. I'd pretend to read while watching her through my sunglasses, cataloging her habits: how she chewed gum when nervous, how she hummed 2000s pop songs, how she'd check her phone every seventeen minutes like clockwork.

"You're being creepy," my old friend Sarah said, dropping onto the lounge chair beside me. She'd cut her hair into a bob and started wearing vintage band tees. "Just go talk to her."

"I'm not being creepy. I'm observing. There's a difference."

"You're literally spying, Kai. That's the definition of creepy."

I rolled my eyes but she wasn't wrong. Things got worse when I found the old coaxial **cable** behind the pool equipment shed. Some kids claimed it was a haunted wire that picked up ghost transmissions. I didn't believe in ghosts, but I did believe in making things weird, so I started listening through the connector like it was a tin can telephone.

"This is so dumb," I muttered, pressing the wire to my ear.

Until the day I heard Maya's voice through it, clear as anything: "...really cute but they keep staring at me like they're gonna assassinate me."

I nearly fell into the pool. She was talking about me.

The next day, I finally forced myself to approach her chair, heart pounding like I'd just chugged three energy drinks. Maya looked up, sunglasses sliding down her nose.

"Hey," I said. "I, uh... I wasn't trying to assassinate you. With my eyes."

She laughed. "I know. I was hoping you'd say hi. You're kinda cute when you're pretending not to stare."

"Oh my god, you knew?"

"Lifeguards see everything, Kai. That's kinda the job."

That afternoon we sat by the pool's edge, feet dangling in the water, talking about everything and nothing. The haunted cable remained behind the shed, a weird artifact of my cowardly phase. Sometimes you have to be a little awkward before you can be brave, and sometimes being called out for spying is exactly what you need to finally look someone in the eye.