Sunburn at the Social Pyramid

The pool party invite had been sitting in Maya's DMs for three days. She'd been typing and deleting responses like a total coward, which was ridiculous because she'd known Lucas since seventh grade, back when he still wore those cargos with too many pockets.

Now here she was, standing at the edge of his backyard in her bright orange bikini that felt way too loud, while chlorine and expensive sunscreen hung in the humid August air. The pool was already packed with the popular crowd—perfect hair, perfect bodies, floating at the top of the invisible social pyramid that ruled Lincoln High like it was their job.

"You coming in or what?" Lucas called from the water, grinning like he didn't just shatter her entire nervous system.

Before she could answer, his golden retriever came barreling out of nowhere, shook himself off directly next to her, and basically gave her a free shower. The whole pool erupted. Someone—probably that jerk Tyler from AP Calc—yelled "Nice look, Maya!" and suddenly everyone was laughing. Not mean laughing, but still.

Her face burned hotter than her sunburn. This was it. This was the moment she died.

But Lucas just swam over, grabbed the dog by the collar, and said, "Buster, you traitor," like it was the most normal thing in the world. Then he looked at her—actually looked at her—and whispered, "Tyler's just mad cause he almost failed that chem lab we helped him with. Get in already, the water's actually decent."

So she jumped. And somewhere between surface and bottom, between the blue tile and the bubbles, Maya realized that pyramids were just triangles anyway, and maybe it was time to stop trying to climb them and start learning how to swim.