Poolside Physics

The chlorine burned my nose as I surfaced from the **water**, gasping. Swim practice had ended twenty minutes ago, but I was still lingering at the bottom of the deep end, delaying the inevitable. Above me, through the distortion of ripples, I could see Maya standing at the pool's edge in that **orange** bikini that made my chest feel weirdly tight.

"Zara, you coming?" Coach Miller yelled. "The Bull wants this place locked up in ten."

The Bull — my nickname for the assistant manager who'd written me up three times this month for "excessive horseplay." Which was rich, considering he spent half his shift hitting on the college girls.

I pulled myself out of the pool, dripping everywhere. Maya was still there, checking her phone. This was it. The moment I'd been psyching myself up for since June.

But then Jason's voice carried across the pool deck. "Yo, check this out." He held up someone's phone, showing a screen to his group of lacrosse bros. "Someone's been **spy**ing on Maya's Instagram. Liked literally every post from three years ago." They all cracked up.

My stomach dropped. I'd done that. Literally last night, at 2 AM, when I couldn't sleep and fell down the rabbit hole of her social media. I didn't think anyone could see who liked old posts. But apparently Instagram had updated their algorithm or something, and now my obsessive deep-liking was public knowledge.

Maya looked over at them, confused. "What?"

"Some stalker went through your whole feed," Jason said, then caught my eye. "Hey, isn't that your friend Zara? She was on your phone earlier, right?"

They all turned to look at me. I felt exposed, like I was still underwater but without the protection of holding my breath.

Maya walked over, her expression unreadable. "Zara?"

I could've denied it. Could've played it off. But the weird thing was, Maya didn't look creeped out. She looked... kind of amused?

"I mean," I said, my voice cracking, "you have really good taste in music. Your 2021 era was underrated."

She grinned. "Finally, someone gets it." Then to everyone's surprise, especially mine, she sat down next to me on the pool edge and stuck her feet in the water. "Wanna get boba after? I've been wanting to ask you all summer."

The lacrosse bros lost interest and dispersed. The Bull yelled something about closing time. But I just sat there, dripping pool water on the concrete, feeling like I'd somehow pulled off the impossible — turning my most mortifying moment into the best thing that happened all summer.