Sink or Swim

I stood at the edge of Jenna's pool, toes curled over the concrete edge, clutching my phone like a lifeline. The water sparkled with that perfect Instagram-filter blue, but inside? My stomach was doing backflips.

"You coming in or what?" Jenna called from the shallow end, surrounded by her effortlessly cool friends. They all looked like they'd stepped out of a TikTok trend.

"Yeah! Just, uh, checking my vitamin levels," I lied. What does that even mean?

The truth: my mom had made me promise to take my vitamin D gummies before the party. "You're inside all summer, Maya, you need the sunshine pill," she'd insisted. And me, being the awkward freshman who couldn't say no to anything, had actually brought them. Now I was standing there like a dork, fingering the bottle in my pocket, watching Jake—the sophomore I'd been crushing on since school ended—laugh at something Jenna said.

Water lapped against the pool walls in this hypnotic rhythm. My throat felt parched. Why was I so terrified? It's just a pool party. Just water. Just people I'd been trying to impress since seventh grade.

Then Jake's dog, this chaotic golden retriever that had been chasing pinecones in the backyard, came tearing through the gate like a furry missile, nails skidding on wet concrete, and launched himself straight into the pool.

Chaos. Absolute chaos.

Water everywhere. People screaming-laughing. Jake's dog paddling around like he owned the place, soaking everyone's towels. And in the middle of it all, Jake looked up, caught my eye, and started laughing so hard he fell backward into the shallow end.

Something shifted. The knot in my chest loosened.

I kicked off my flip-flops, let the vitamin bottle clatter onto the chair, and jumped.

The water was perfect—cool and shockingly alive around my skin. I came up sputtering to find Jake grinning at me, hair plastered to his forehead, his dog now shaking water droplets onto everyone like he was part of the plan all along.

"About time," Jake said. "Thought we were gonna have to send the dog in after you."