The Pool Party Pyramid

Maya stood at the edge of the **pool**, clutching her **iPhone** like a lifeline. The screen glowed with unread messages from the group chat that had somehow decided she was persona non grata this week. Again.

"Maya! You coming in or what?" Jake called from the water, splashing water that somehow sparkled even in the dying sunset light. His friends laughed. Everyone laughed. Maya felt like she was at the bottom of some invisible social **pyramid**, watching from below as the popular kids lolled about like Egyptian pharaohs.

"Just checking something," she lied. Her thumbs hovered over the screen. Three new notifications: Rachel had posted a story without her. Emma had left her on read. The group chat was moving forward without her, that same sickening feeling of being phased out.

The backyard had that end-of-summer party vibe—twinkle lights strung between trees, someone's older brother bumping lo-fi beats through a speaker connected by a tangled **cable** that snaked through the grass like a technological snake. Maya had spent all year curating her aesthetic, posting the right photos, saying the right things. And now? Now she was frozen at the edge of the pool while everyone else swam.

"You good?" Rachel asked, suddenly beside her. They hadn't spoken since The Incident, whatever that even was. Rachel's phone buzzed—she ignored it.

"Yeah. Just... thinking."

"About what?" Rachel actually waited for an answer.

"About how I can't **bear** another summer of this," Maya said, surprising herself. "The constant checking, the wondering who's mad at me today, the feeling like everything's gonna disappear if I make one wrong move." Her voice cracked. "I'm tired, Rachel."

Rachel looked at her phone, then back at Maya. "Yeah. Me too."

Maya turned her phone off. She took a breath and cannonballed into the pool.

When she surfaced, sputtering and laughing, Rachel was grinning. "Finally."

"Finally," Maya agreed. The water felt better than any notification ever had.