Pyramids at the Pool

The water rippled around Emma's legs as she waded into the backyard pool party, her heart hammering against her ribs like a baseball in a mitt. Senior year. The final countdown. And here she was, hovering at the edge of the social pyramid, watching Jake—her Jake—laugh with his arm draped over Skylar's shoulder.

"You okay?" whispered Marisol, her best friend since seventh grade, floating beside her on a neon flamingo.

Emma forced a smile. "Fine. Why wouldn't I be?" Bull. Total bull, and they both knew it.

A splash war erupted near the diving board. Tyler, that asshole who lived to remind everyone he'd made varsity baseball, cannonballed straight into the middle of a group of sophomore girls. They shrieked, half-annoyed, half-delighted. Emma rolled her eyes so hard it actually hurt.

Then something moved near the fence—a flash of tabby fur. A cat, thin and wary, frozen between party lights and shadows.

"Is that..." Marisol started.

Without thinking, Emma waded toward the edge, water streaming down her cutoffs. The cat hissed and bolted—but not before Emma recognized it. The stray from behind the mini-mart. The one she'd been feeding for months.

"Hey!" Emma shouted, scrambling up the ladder. "Watch—"

Tyler's pitbull mix, a hundred pounds of muscle and bad training, caught the cat's scent and went wild, dragging his owner toward the fence. The cat scrambled up the nearest tree—straight into the branches overhanging the pool.

"TYLER!" Emma screamed. "CALL OFF YOUR DOG!"

But Tyler was too busy posing, letting the bull pull him like some badge of honor. The cat, terrified and treed directly above the deep end, dug in claws—and lost its grip.

Splash.

Emma hit the water before the cat had even surfaced, hauling the thrashing, hissing bundle against her chest. The cat clawed her shoulder, wild with panic, but Emma didn't let go. Not even when Tyler laughed and said, "Whoa, Em, saving drowning cats now? That's hardcore."

She wanted to scream. Instead she found herself next to Jake, who'd somehow appeared.

"You okay?" he asked, actually looking at her—not through her, not around her. AT her. "That was... really brave."

The pyramid tilted. Just a little. Just enough.

"Cat's fine," Emma said, suddenly exhausted. "What about you? You letting him act like that?"

Jake flushed. The flush of someone who'd been waiting for permission to care.

He stepped toward Tyler. "Yo, TY. Call it off. That's not cool."

The music didn't stop, but conversations did. The social pyramid rearranged itself in real time.

Emma climbed out, cat in arms, water dripping everywhere. Marisol met her with towels and silence and eyes that said everything.

"Nice," she whispered.

Emma watched Jake walk away from Skylar toward Tyler. Watched something change.

"Yeah," Emma said, realizing she was shaking. "It really was."