The Palm Reader's Pool Party

The cable box blinked 12:00, mocking me. Three weeks into summer and I'd managed to accomplish exactly nothing besides watching reruns and avoiding everyone's texts.

"You going to Jasmine's thing?" Mom asked, leaning against the doorframe. "Everyone's going to be there."

"Maybe." I shoved my face into a pillow.

The problem wasn't the pool party itself. The problem was Ethan. Ethan, who I'd liked since seventh grade. Ethan, who would definitely be there with his new girlfriend who had somehow mastered the art of being effortless while I still panicked about which swimsuit to wear.

**Two hours later, I stood in Jasmine's backyard clutching a bag of papaya slices like they were a lifeline.** My little brother was obsessed with them lately, and I'd panic-brought them as my contribution because the fruit platter at Whole Foods had felt way too intimate.

The pool area was already packed. Girls in bikinis that cost more than my entire wardrobe, guys showing off, that specific kind of chaotic energy that made me want to dissolve into the deck.

"Hey! You made it!" Jasmine waved from the pool's edge, then immediately got splashed in the face.

Then I saw him. Ethan. Standing by the **palm tree** that drooped over the fence, looking unfairly good in swim trunks and that same worn-out t-shirt he'd had forever. And there she was—Brynn—laughing at something he said, her hand casually on his arm like it belonged there.

**I couldn't bear it.** Literally couldn't stand there and watch whatever was happening between them. I turned toward the house, but my childhood best friend Marcus caught me.

"Nice papayas." He grinned. "Want to play for life or death?"

"What?"

"Bear basketball." He pointed to the inflatable basketball hoop floating in the deep end. And there it was—the **giant stuffed bear** someone had brought as a joke prize, now serving as the most ridiculous mascot in the history of pool sports.

Something shifted. Maybe it was the absurdity of a stuffed bear presiding over a basketball game in the middle of a suburban pool. Maybe it was Marcus not making me talk about feelings. Maybe it was that nobody here actually cared about papaya slices or my ancient one-piece.

"You're going down," I said, and for the first time all summer, I meant it.

**Later that night, Ethan found me by the palm tree again.** Brynn had left early, and the party had thinned to just the real ones.

"I was going to ask if you wanted to hang out this summer," he said quietly. "But you kept canceling."

I looked at the empty pool, the papaya bag I'd finally opened and actually enjoyed, the bear deflating in the corner.

"Yeah," I said. "I know. I think I'm done with that now."