The Cat Who Knew How to Float

Maya had been successfully avoiding pool parties since sixth grade. That was before Tyler Evans' invitation slid into her DMs with that little gray thumbs-up that meant *I know you're ignoring this but I'm asking anyway.*

"You're not still scared of water, are you?" Kenzie had asked when they were twelve, and Maya's face had burned so hot she thought it might actually boil the pool water.

Now she was staring at Tyler's front door, contemplating what would happen if she just started running. Like, literally sprinting away. But then she remembered the cat.

The cat was the whole reason she was here. Tyler's mom was out of town, and someone needed to feed Professor Whiskerton while Tyler hosted what was apparently *the* party of the summer. Maya had offered because she liked Tyler, okay? She liked him in that way where you memorize his schedule even though you've never actually spoken, and now she was stuck pet-sitting during his own party.

She found the cat in the laundry room, staring at the washer like it contained the secrets of the universe. Professor Whiskerton was possibly the ugliest cat she'd ever seen—missing half an ear, one eye squinted permanently shut, fur that looked like it had been styled in a hurricane. But he purred like a lawnmower engine, and Maya felt immediately better.

"At least one of us doesn't have to go out there," she told him.

She could hear it already—the splashing, the laughter, whoever had brought a Bluetooth speaker that was definitely too loud for 2 PM on a Saturday. Her chest tightened. Water had always been her thing. The thing she couldn't do. The thing that made her different, wrong, broken somehow. Other people learned to swim like they learned to walk. Maya had learned to build elaborate excuses.

She was still crouched on the floor, letting Professor Whiskerton knead her denim shorts like they were dough, when she heard it.

"Maya?"

She froze. Tyler was standing in the doorway, wet hair plastered to his forehead, holding a red solo cup like it was a normal thing to be holding. Behind him, through the sliding glass door, she could see the pool. Blue. Shimmering. Terrifying.

"Hey," she managed. "Just feeding the cat."

"You coming out?" There was something in his voice that wasn't pressure. Just... curiosity. Or maybe hope.

"I don't really swim." It came out smaller than she meant it to.

Tyler nodded like this was perfectly reasonable information. "You don't have to swim. You could just hang out. Kenzie brought those mozzarella sticks you like from Costco."

Maya stood up, and Professor Whiskerton let out a betrayed meow. "You remembered?"

"I remember a lot of things, Maya." His face did this thing where he got a little red around the ears. "Like how you helped me with that Spanish test last year when I was totally failing. Or how you always wear those mismatched socks because you think they're lucky. Or how you're probably the only person who'd volunteer to cat-sit during a party you weren't even planning to attend."

Maya felt something crack open in her chest. "You knew I was invited?"

"I sent you the invite myself?"

They stood there for a second, and then Professor Whiskerton decided he was done with their nonsense and trotted past them both, straight toward the sliding glass door. Before Maya could stop him, he'd slipped through someone's legs and was padding across the concrete toward the pool.

"Cat!" she yelped, and then she was running, shoes skidding on wet concrete, everything else forgotten except the absolute certainty that Professor Whiskerton was about to become Professor Drownederton.

She reached the edge of the pool just as the cat stopped, dipped one paw in the water, and then sat down like this was exactly where he'd meant to end up all along. He looked at Maya with his one good eye like, *What? I'm chilling.*

Someone wolf-whistled. "Is that a cat?" "Bro, whose cat is that?" "I'm not saying cats are better than dogs but—"

Maya was standing at the edge of the pool, her heart hammering, water inches from her toes, when Tyler caught up with her.

"He's fine," Tyler said, and he was laughing. "Professor Whiskerton does this every time we have people over. He likes the attention."

"You named him Professor Whiskerton?"

"My little sister was five. We were all five."

Maya looked down at the water. It was just water. It couldn't hurt her. She'd spent three years running from something that was literally just hydrogen and oxygen and whatever chemicals they put in pools now.

She took a breath. And then another. And then she sat down at the edge of the pool, dangling her legs in, and it was fine. It was actually kind of nice. Cool and refreshing and not at all like the monster she'd built up in her head.

"So," Tyler said, sitting next to her. "Costco mozzarella sticks?"

Maya looked at him, really looked at him, and realized she'd been running from more than just water. She'd been running from being seen, from being vulnerable, from the possibility that people might actually like her if she let them.

"Yeah," she said, and Professor Whiskerton let out a satisfied purr. "Yeah, I think I'm gonna stay."