Summer Skin

Maya pulled the snapback **hat** lower, trying to disappear into the fabric. Beside her, Jessica and her friends were already bikini-ready, their skin golden and perfect, while Maya felt like a potato someone had forgotten to bake.

"You gonna swim or just stand there looking all mysterious?" Tyler asked, flicking water at her. He was exactly the kind of cute that made Maya's brain short-circuit – stupid charming, stupid popular, stupid aware of it.

"I'm good," Maya managed, clutching the weird fruit salad her mom had forced her to bring. "Just, you know, hanging out."

Her older brother Ryan had materialized by the **pool**, holding his phone like it contained the secrets to the universe. He was home from college, and somehow even more annoying than when he'd left. His shoulders were burned to a crisp – what their mom called "sunburn," what Ryan called "nature's tattoo," but what looked suspiciously like a **bear** had mauled his back. Red and angry, with strange claw marks from where he'd fallen asleep on a lounge chair.

"Little sister," Ryan said, still typing. "You know you're wearing socks with sandals, right?"

"It's a vibe," Maya shot back, though her face burned hotter than Ryan's sunburn.

A **cat** – a scrawny, orange tabby that looked like it had seen things – appeared on the fence, watching them with judgment in its yellow eyes. It had been showing up at every party since June, like some furry critic sent to rate their social performance.

"Dude," Tyler said, following Maya's gaze. "That cat's been at like, every party. It's giving obsessed with us."

Maya set her fruit salad on a table. The **papaya** cubes looked alien beside the watermelon chunks everyone actually ate. Her mom had insisted papayas were "exotic and sophisticated," which was exactly what Maya felt like she wasn't.

"Try some?" Maya heard herself saying before she could chicken out. "It's... actually pretty good?"

Jessica laughed, but not meanly. "Only if you try swimming. Deal?"

Ryan looked up from his phone. "Maya, you hate swimming. Remember last summer when you cried because—"

"Shut up, Ryan." Maya stripped off her hat and sunglasses. Her hair was a frizzy disaster, her one-piece swimsuit had seen better days, and she was about to eat weird fruit in front of the cutest boy in tenth grade.

The papaya was sweet and strange, nothing like she expected. Jessica tried a piece and made a face, then shrugged. "Okay, not terrible."

Tyler splashed her again, and this time Maya jumped in.

The cat watched from the fence as Maya surfaced, gasping and laughing while Ryan's sunburned bear-back looked on. Later, Tyler would sit beside her and ask about the papaya. Later, Jessica would invite her to the mall. Later, Maya would realize that sometimes the most embarrassing moments became the ones you actually wanted to remember.

But right now, she was just swimming, finally letting herself be seen.