Poolside Secrets

The orange inflatable raft bobbed against the pool edge, mocking me with its brightness. I stood frozen at the sliding glass door, heart pounding like I'd just finished a 5K instead of just standing there.

"You coming in or what?" Maya called from the water, surrounded by the popular crowd that I'd spent three years trying to avoid noticing too much.

I pulled my phone from my pocket, checking the time again. Still ten minutes early. Being early to your own party? That was a level of uncool I didn't know existed.

Then I saw it—a movement near the fence. Someone behind the bushes, watching.

Great. Just what I needed. A spy at my sixteenth birthday party. My stomach did that awful flip it always did when I felt exposed, vulnerable, like everyone could see right through the carefully constructed wall of I-don't-care-what-anyone-thinks I'd been building since seventh grade.

I slipped outside, following the fence line, my bare feet silent on the concrete. The July heat pressed against my skin, heavy and thick. If someone was going to crash this thing before it even started, I needed to know who.

The bushes rustled. I pulled back a branch—

And froze.

A golden retriever sat there, tongue out, tail thumping against the fence slats like this was the best day of his life. Beside him, crushed against the wood, was Tyler from my AP Chem class. Tyler, who sat three rows back and never spoke. Tyler, whose notebook I'd caught myself doodling in the margins of during lectures because he had these hands that made everything look effortless.

"He—uh—got out," Tyler stammered, his face the exact same shade as my raft. "Buster. My dog. I was chasing him and he"

"Ran straight into my backyard party," I finished, because my brain had short-circuited.

We stared at each other for three seconds that felt like three years. The dog nosed my hand, and Tyler's eyes flickered to my phone in my other hand.

"Is that... is that Harry Styles?"

I looked down. Yep. Lock screen. Maximum betrayal of my carefully curated coolness.

"I plead the fifth," I said.

Tyler smiled, and it was stupidly cute. "Yeah, me too."

"You like Harry Styles?"

"No, I mean—I also plead the fifth. About my phone. Which definitely doesn't have him on the lock screen either."

From the pool, someone started laughing. Maya called, "Zoey! Who are you talking to? Come swimming already!"

Tyler and I exchanged a look. Something passed between us—recognition, maybe. That feeling when you realize someone else has been performing the same carefully constructed indifference as you have.

"You should come in," I heard myself say. "If you're not busy spying on me through bushes anymore."

"I wasn't—"

"Tyler. You were literally hiding in a shrubbery."

He laughed, and it was the best sound I'd heard all summer. "Fair point. But only if you promise not to tell anyone about Harry."

"Your secret's safe with me," I said. "And I'm pretty sure Buster knows how to keep a confidence."

The dog barked, and we both jumped, and then we were laughing, and for the first time all year, I wasn't thinking about who was watching or whether I was doing this right or whether anyone was judging my orange raft or my Harry Styles phone case.

I was just standing here, barefoot in my backyard, with a boy and his dog, about to jump into a pool where my friends were waiting.