The Summer Everything Changed

Lifeguarding at the community pool was supposed to be the easiest summer gig ever. Mostly just sitting in the elevated chair, blasting playlists through a headphone cable that frayed more each week, and occasionally yelling 'WALK!' at kids who genuinely didn't understand the concept. But this summer felt different.

Maybe because I was seventeen now, and everyone kept asking what college I'd picked, and I had exactly zero answers. Or maybe because Maya, the girl I'd been low-key crushing on since eighth grade, suddenly started showing up every afternoon with her friends.

Then there was the pool cat. Someone had dumped an orange tabby kitten near the back fence in June, and the staff had been sneaking it food and water behind the manager's back. We called him Vitamin C because his fur was the color of those chewable supplements my mom still made me take, even though I literally took a vitamin every morning and had told her approximately fifty times that I wasn't seven anymore.

The Wednesday everything changed started normal enough. Maya actually sat near my stand instead of with her usual crowd. We talked about nothing—school, the heat wave, how the pool water looked increasingly like something that might glow in the dark.

Then the weather app on my phone blew up. Severe thunderstorm warning. Lightning possible. The pool cleared out fast, everyone grabbing their towels and sprinting to the parking lot.

Everyone except Maya.

'Storm coming,' she said, like I hadn't noticed the sky turning the color of a fresh bruise.

'Yeah, I should—'

'Can I ask you something?' she interrupted.

The first lightning strike hit somewhere close. The sky lit up purple.

'I've been meaning to tell you something all summer,' she said.

My heart was doing something genuinely concerning in my chest. This was it. Every teen movie moment I'd ever watched had prepared me for this confession, this declaration, this—

'I'm not coming back here next summer,' she said. 'I'm moving to my dad's in Oregon. Fresh start, you know?'

The second you find out your crush is leaving forever is a weird time to realize you never actually spoke to her about anything real. Just pool weather and homework complaints and whatever surface-level nonsense passed for conversation.

'Oh,' I said.

But then she laughed. 'But I'm not gone YET. So you want to get frozen yogurt or what?'

The thunder started, rumbling low and constant. I looked at Vitamin C, who was watching from behind the storage shed like he understood everything and nothing simultaneously.

'Yeah,' I said. 'Yeah, I do.'

The cable to my headphones snapped somewhere in the parking lot, sprinting toward her car. I didn't even care. Some things are worth breaking.

I still didn't have any answers about college or growing up or whatever came next. But for the first time all summer, something finally felt like a beginning instead of an ending.