Submerged

I felt like a total spy, lurking behind the inflatable unicorn at Maya's pool party. Saturday night and everyone was either paired off or pretending not to care. Me? I was just trying to survive without embarrassing myself.

My brain kept replaying what Tyler had said earlier: "You're not gonna eat that spinach dip, right? It looks like literal swamp water." I'd spent twenty minutes making that stupid dip, trying to be someone who could just whip up fancy food like it was nothing. Now it sat on the snack table, untouched and judging me.

The pool lights flickered. Someone mentioned a storm rolling in, but nobody moved. That's the thing about being sixteen — you act like the weather can't touch you, like you're invincible as long as you're together in someone's backyard with music too loud and expectations even louder.

Then lightning split the sky, actually purple-white against the darkness, and suddenly everyone was screaming-laughing-rushing toward the covered patio. I got separated from the group, fumbled with my phone, dropped it straight into the deep end.

"Are you kidding me?" I hissed at the universe.

Maya appeared beside me, drenched and gorgeous and why was she even talking to me. "Your phone?"

"Yeah. I'm an idiot."

"I'll get it."

She dove in, smooth as anything, and surfaced holding my phone like it was some prize from a claw machine. "Your lock screen's a picture of your cat?"

"Don't judge me."

"I'm not." She grinned. "I named mine Spinach. Because he's green and kind of mushy-looking?"

"You named your cat Spinach?"

"I was seven. Don't roast me."

Everyone was watching from under the patio, probably wondering why Maya was hanging out with the girl who made swamp-water dip and dropped electronics in pools. But Maya just stood there, dripping wet, holding my phone like it was something worth saving.

"Come inside," she said. "I promise nobody's gonna talk about the dip."

Maybe not everyone belongs everywhere. But sometimes, just sometimes, you find the people who make space for you anyway.