The Chlorine Diaries

Maya stood at the edge of the pool, her heart doing gymnastics. The Taylor's annual summer party. Every popular kid from school was here, and here she was, having promised Jake she'd finally learn to swim properly after sixteen years of being that person who clung to the wall like a desperate koala.

"You got this, Maya!" Jake called from where he was demonstrating some casual laps that made it look like breathing underwater was the most natural thing in the world.

She took a deep breath and jumped.

The water swallowed her whole, and suddenly she was kicking, splashing, actually doing it. For about three glorious seconds, she was swimming. Then her brain remembered it didn't know what it was doing, and she went under.

That's when she heard it—yowling from the Taylor's backyard fence.

Their cat, a massive orange tabby named Simba who apparently hated being left out of party drama, was balanced precariously on the pool's safety cover, batting at something in the water.

"Simba, NO!" Chloe Taylor screamed from her lounge chair.

Maya surfaced, sputtering, just as Simba pounced at what turned out to be Mr. Henderson's golden retriever, who'd somehow wandered through an open gate and was now swimming toward the deep end like he owned the place. The cat's landing was less graceful—he face-planted into the pool with a spectacular splash.

Chaos erupted. Everyone was laughing (or trying not to), someone was recording, and Maya found herself simultaneously rescuing a very ungrateful wet cat and being rescued herself by Jake, who'd materialized beside her.

"I got you, I got Simba," he said, somehow managing to sound calm while holding a furious, dripping feline.

Later, wrapped in a towel and sitting on the pool deck with an equally towel-burdened Simba glaring at everyone, Maya realized something. Her hair was a disaster, her makeup had probably washed away in the first five seconds, and she'd just become the person who saved a cat from a swimming pool while a dog looked on approvingly.

But Jake was sitting next to her, and everyone was high-fiving her like she'd just won gold at the Olympics, and honestly? She'd never felt more herself.

"So," Jake said, grinning. "Same time next week?"

Maya laughed. "Let's start with you teaching me how not to drown first."

Simba, apparentlyforgiving them, chose that moment to shake water all over both of them.

"Low blow, buddy," Maya said. But she was still smiling.