The Shallow End

The text invited everyone to Jordan's pool party. Everyone except me, apparently.

"You coming?" Maya asked, sliding into the seat next to me at lunch. She'd been my best friend since sixth grade, back when friendship bracelets were still cool and we hadn't discovered the existential terror of high school social hierarchies.

"Can't," I said. "Busy."

"Doing what?" Her eyebrows did that thing where she knew I was lying but was giving me a chance to come clean.

"Stuff."

Maya sighed. "Emma, you haven't been swimming since what happened last summer. It's been literally eleven months. Jordan's party is gonna be fine. Nobody's gonna make you—"

"I'm not going, okay?" I snapped, then immediately felt guilty because Maya was just trying to help and also she'd given me her tots.

The thing was, I could swim. Technically. Like, I wasn't gonna drown in the shallow end. But ever since that embarrassing incident at the community pool where I'd somehow managed to get both legs stuck in the pool ladder while trying to look chill exiting the water, resulting in three lifeguards having to extract me while approximately half my graduating class looked on and filmed it—well, let's just say my relationship with water was complicated.

My phone buzzed. Jordan himself: "/pool party @ my place, dont b lame"

I stared at it. Maya watched me stare at it.

"You know what's lame," she said quietly, "is letting one awkward moment ruin your whole summer. Again."

That hit different because it was true. I'd spent the entire school year in this cycle of overthinking and avoiding. Always worried about what people might think, what could go wrong, who might remember that one time I did that one thing. Meanwhile, everyone else was out there living.

I opened my messages back up. "/im in"

Maya's grin was everything.

Later that night, standing poolside in a swimsuit I'd tried on approximately twenty times, I felt exposed. Jordan's pool was huge—lights, music, people everywhere. My chest tightened.

Then Maya jumped in, splashing water everywhere. "EMMA! THE WATER'S ACTUALLY NOT COLD!"

Everyone was looking. No one cared.

I jumped.

The shock of cool water. The sudden silence underwater. For a second, everything else—my anxiety, my overthinking, my fear of looking stupid—just dissolved. I kicked upward, broke the surface, gasping.

Maya was right there. "See? You're literally swimming."

And I was. Not perfectly. Not gracefully. But I was doing it.

Later, as we sat on the pool edge eating pizza with wet hands, Jordan flopped down next to us. "Nice cannonball earlier, Emma."

I froze. Had he seen? Was he being sarcastic?

"No, seriously," he said. "You just went for it. That's sick."

Somehow, in the most unexpected way, I'd made peace with the pool. But more importantly, I'd remembered something I'd forgotten: sometimes you have to jump in before you're ready. Sometimes the water's cold and you're scared and your legs might get stuck again. But you jump anyway.

Because the alternative—staying dry on the sidelines—is actually way worse.