The Pool Pyramid

Maya gripped her iPhone so hard her knuckles turned white. Three notifications from Chloe:

*WHERE R U??*

*

everyone's waiting*

*

don't be awkward*

The screen glowed against her wrist as she hovered outside the gate. Parties weren't really her thing. Especially not pool parties where social hierarchies floated as clearly as the inflatable flamingos.

She stepped inside. Instant chaos.

"MAYA!" Chloe's voice cut through the pop music and splash-fights. "Finally! We're doing the pyramid for TikTok. Get in the water!"

A human pyramid was forming in the deep end. The popular crew—naturally—comprising the base, with smaller people stacked above them like some terrifying social Darwinism experiment.

"I'm good," Maya started, but Chloe was already dragging her toward the pool.

"No, you're perfect for the third row. You're strong from swimming club, right?"

Maya hadn't been to swimming club in two years. Chloe knew that. Everyone knew that. But acknowledging that would require admitting she'd quit because her body had started changing in ways that made spandex feel like a declaration of war.

"Whatever." She dropped her phone on a lounge chair. The water hit her like shock—cold and overwhelming and suddenly she was chest-deep, being positioned like furniture.

"Higher! Higher!" Someone chanted from the poolside.

The pyramid swayed. Maya's legs trembled. Someone's foot slipped against her shoulder. Then another.

The whole thing collapsed—screams, water everywhere, bodies tumbling through the blue.

Maya surfaced first, gasping, hair plastered across her face. Everyone was laughing. But not mean laughing. The real kind—winded, chaotic, everybody looking ridiculous kind.

"AGAIN!" Someone shouted.

"Hard pass," Maya said, treading water. A girl from her math class—quiet, who always sat in the back—floated beside her.

"That was actually kind of legendary failure," the girl said.

Maya laughed. "Total disaster."

"Disasters are better." The girl tipped onto her back. "Perfect is boring."

They floated there while Chloe rebuilt the pyramid without them. Maya's iPhone sat safe on the lounge chair, notifications piling up, ignored.

"Hey," the girl said. "I'm Jamie."

"Maya."

"You want to just float?"

"Yeah," Maya said, letting her legs drift up, watching the light ripple across the water ceiling. "Yeah, I do."