The Chlorine Diaries

Maya's golden retriever, Buster, had absolutely no respect for social boundaries. Like, zero. Which is how Maya found herself standing at the deep end of the Hendersons' pool at 11:47 PM on a Saturday, fully clothed in her favorite vintage band tee, while three people she'd been trying to impress for months watched from the patio.

"He's not gonna jump, right?" Chloe asked, sliding her phone back into her pocket. Maya had spent the entire semester strategically sitting near Chloe in AP Bio, hoping to graduate from 'lab partner' to actual friend. This was not the vibe.

Buster stood at the edge, tail going a mile a minute, practically vibrating with excitement. The pool lights cast these weird rippling blue shadows across his fur, making him look like some kind of aquatic monster.

"Buster, no," Maya said, using her serious voice. The one that worked on smaller dogs and toddlers.

Buster did the exact opposite of no. He launched himself off the edge in this spectacularly ungraceful arc, paws everywhere, like a furry cannonball. The splash was legendary. Water went everywhere. Like, everywhere.

Chloe and her friends were laughing, but not in a mean way. Actually laughing.

"Oh my god, he's living his best life," Chloe said.

Maya stared at her dog paddling happily toward the shallow end, completely unbothered, probably proud of himself. And suddenly she was just... tired. Tired of overthinking everything, tired of carefully curating her personality, tired of being the girl who always had the right answer but never had any fun.

"You know what?" Maya said, kicking off her converse. "If you can't beat 'em."

She jumped.

The water was shockingly cold, but in the best way. Like, life-affirmingly cold. She surfaced to find Chloe and the others standing at the edge, grinning.

"Well?" Chloe called out. "You coming in or what?"

Two minutes later, four teenagers and one very satisfied dog were treading water in the glowing blue pool, clothes and all, while someone's phone blasted a playlist that was probably too quiet to actually hear but felt loud anyway. Maya's expensive jeans were ruined. Her band tee was definitely never going to recover.

She looked over at Buster, who was now floating on his back like he owned the place, and at Chloe, who was attempting to teach everyone a synchronized swimming move that definitely wasn't going to work.

Yeah. Maya thought, kicking lazily toward the surface. Sometimes you just gotta jump in the pool and let yourself make a splash.