Poolside Secrets

The chlorine hit Maya's nose before she even saw the water—Tuesday at the community pool, same as last summer, same as every summer. Except Chloe wasn't splwaiting by the lounge chairs like usual.

"Spying on me again?" Maya joked when she finally spotted Chloe behind the concession stand, phone held weirdly low.

Chloe jumped. "What? No. Just... checking Instagram."

Maya's stomach did that thing it'd been doing for weeks—that pinchy, Vitamin D-deficient feeling, even though she actually took her supplements now. Something was off. Chloe had been weird all July, cancelling plans, texting less, vanishing into vague family obligations.

"You're acting so sketch," Maya said, kicking off her flip-flops. "For real. Are you mad about—"

"I'm not mad!"

They'd been best friend since sixth grade, when Chloe had cried over her dead goldfish and Maya had helped her give it a proper funeral in her backyard. They'd shared everything. First periods. First crushes. First times getting drunk off Mike's Hard Lemonade at Sarah's party last winter.

Now Chloe was scrolling through her phone with that tight expression, the one that meant she was hiding something.

"Fine," Maya said, heading toward the pool. "Whatever."

The water felt amazing—cool and shocking against her skin. She did three laps without stopping, letting everything wash away. When she surfaced, Chloe was sitting on the edge, dangling her feet in the water.

"I've been taking vitamins," Chloe said quietly.

Maya tread water. "Okay?"

"For my skin. And hair vitamins. And... supplements. For working out."

Maya squinted against the sun. "You're already skinny, though. You literally always have been."

"I know!" Chloe's voice cracked. "That's the—my cousin made this TikTok about me and it got, like, 300k views and the comments were so toxic and now I feel like everyone's SPYING on me, like I'm always being watched, and I just wanted to—fix everything before school starts."

The silence stretched. Just water lapping against the pool edge.

"Chloe," Maya said softly. "You know those comments are literally from randos who wish they were you, right?"

"I know. I just... I didn't know how to say it without sounding crazy."

"You literally have a pet goldfish named after a K-pop star," Maya said. "You've always been crazy. That's why I love you."

Chloe finally laughed, and it sounded like relief.

"Get in here," Maya said, splashing water toward her. "And delete TikTok. For real. It's rotting your brain."

Chloe slipped into the water, and for a second, everything felt like it used to—easy and familiar and theirs.

"You're not mad?" Chloe asked.

"Mad that you got self-conscious over a TikTok? Sure. Mad that you hid it? Kinda. But I'm not losing my best friend over something this dumb."

They floated on their backs, staring up at the sky.

"Hey," Chloe said. "Wanna get ice cream after? My treat."

"Only if you promise to stop taking all those vitamins. Your pee is literally going to be neon."

Chloe laughed. "Deal."

And just like that, the water felt right again.