Poolside Philosophy

The chlorine **water** burned Maya's eyes, but not as much as the way everyone was staring. She'd spent forty-five minutes perfecting her eyeliner just to ruin it three minutes into Taylor's end-of-summer pool party.

"You're literally so dramatic," said Chloe, floating nearby with the effortless confidence of someone who'd never had a panic attack in a Target bathroom. "Just relax."

Easy for her to say. Chloe was the kind of girl who probably emerged from the womb knowing how to casually cascade her hair over one shoulder.

Maya fumbled with her phone, trying to look busy instead of like she was mentally calculating the social dynamics of every circle of friends in the vicinity. Her mom had texted earlier: *Don't forget your **vitamin** D supplement!*

Because obviously, the solution to being socially awkward at a pool party was remembering her vitamins.

Then she saw him—Felix, everyone called him **Fox** because of his copper hair and the way he seemed to appear and disappear like he was moving through some invisible labyrinth of social acceptability. He was standing near the deep end, talking to Taylor, who leaned back against the pool edge like she was some kind of ancient **sphinx**, beautiful and unreadable, posed to ask riddles no one could answer.

Maya's chest tightened. She hated this feeling—the way her brain supplied commentary like she was watching herself in a movie, rating each awkward moment on a scale of one to ten.

Fox caught her eye. Actually smiled. A real smile, not one of those polite grimaces.

"Hey," he said, suddenly beside her. "You going in?"

She shrugged. "Eventually."

"Cool." He slid into the water with zero hesitation. "I hate that thing where everyone stands around pretending they're not dying to jump in."

Maya laughed before she could stop herself. And just like that, the water didn't seem so scary anymore.