Poolside Truth or Dare

The chlorine stung my eyes, but I didn't care. Standing by the edge of Maya's above-ground pool, water dripping from my cutoffs, I felt like I was finally part of something. Something real.

"Truth or dare?" Carlos asked, grinning like he already knew my answer.

"Truth." Always truth. I wasn't brave enough for dares.

"Who you got a crush on?"

My face burned. Thank god for my sunglasses—my brother's oversized pair that made me look like a bug but hid everything.

"Pass."

"Lame!" someone yelled, but Maya squeezed my shoulder. "Leave him alone."

That was the thing about Maya. She saw me. Not the me I pretended to be—confident, chill, whatever. The real me, who still slept with a stuffed bear because middle school was wrecking my mental health. The me who'd rather stay home than face baseball tryouts again because striking out in front of everyone was basically social suicide.

"Let's play something else," Maya said, grabbing her iPhone from the pool deck. "We can spy on Jordan's party live."

Jordan—the guy who'd invited everyone but us. Because I wasn't cool enough and Maya was too weird for the popular crowd.

She opened Instagram and there it was: Jordan's story. Kids from our grade, dancing in his basement, living lives we weren't part of. Watching it felt like pressing on a bruise. Painful but impossible to stop.

"Why do we do this to ourselves?" I asked finally.

Maya looked at me, water dripping from her hair like she'd just emerged from some underwater kingdom. "Because sometimes seeing what you're missing makes you realize you didn't want it anyway."

She closed the app. "Let's go back in. The water's actually not that bad once you get used to it."

I hesitated. Then jumped. The shock of cold water was perfect—clearing everything, washing away the jealousy, the fear, the pressure to be someone I wasn't. For a second, just floating there, I was okay with being me. Even if me wasn't who I thought I needed to be.

Maybe that was enough.