Sink or Swim

Marcus stood at the edge of Jessica's pool, toes curled around the warm concrete, while half the sophomore class splashed and laughed behind him. The water glittered like broken glass under the July sun, and somewhere someone's phone blasted that TikTok audio everyone was using.

"You coming in or what?" That was Tyler, captain of the baseball team, currently doing a cannonball that displaced like three gallons of chlorinated water onto Marcus's sneakers.

Marcus's stomach did that thing where it felt like it was trying to bear hug his spine from the inside. Nobody knew about his dad — how three weeks ago, Marcus had found his old baseball glove in the donation box with everything else they were getting rid of. Because his dad wasn't coming back. The gambling thing had finally caught up to them, and now they were moving in with his grandma in two weeks.

"Yeah," Marcus said, but his voice cracked. "Just warming up."

"Whatever," Tyler said, already turning toward Katie, who was floating on one of those ridiculous inflatable slices of pizza.

Marcus watched them all — the cool kids, the ones whose biggest problem was whether their crush would Snapchat them back. He'd been one of them last week. Now he felt like he was carrying around this whole other life, this secret that made everything fake.

Jessica swam over to the edge. She had that silver glitter on her eyelids that caught the light. "Hey. You okay? You look like you're about to throw up or something."

Marcus almost laughed. "Just thinking about how deep this water actually is."

"It's six feet in the middle. Why? You can't swim?"

"I can swim," he said. "I'm just... I'm moving. At the end of the month."

The words hung there. Jessica's expression shifted, and for a second Marcus thought she might say something corny like "we'll stay in touch." Instead she just treaded water, watching him with these eyes that suddenly looked older than fifteen.

"That sucks," she said. "Like, actually sucks."

"Yeah."

"You know," she said, "my cousin moved last year. Everyone swore they'd keep talking, but like, nobody actually did. People are trash at that stuff. But like, if you wanted to—"

She stopped.

"What?" Marcus said.

"If you wanted to, we could hang out before you go. Like, actually hang out. Not just pool party BS."

The tightness in Marcus's chest loosened. He looked at the water, at Tyler and Katie and all the people he wouldn't see in two weeks, and then back at Jessica with her glittery eyelids and her straightforward offer.

"Yeah," Marcus said, already kicking off his shoes. "Yeah, I'd like that."

He jumped in, and when he came up gasping and wiping water from his eyes, Jessica was still there. The day felt different somehow — not fixed, exactly, but not as heavy as it had been five minutes ago. The bear inside his stomach had finally unclenched, and for the first time all afternoon, Marcus felt like he could actually breathe.