The Summer I Didn't Drown

The pool smell—that sharp chemical punch of chlorine—was practically my signature scent by July. Between morning swim practice and my actual job lifeguarding, I spent more hours underwater than on land. My friends thought I was crazy, giving up my summer to patrol the kiddie pool and blow my whistle at kids who ran on the deck.

But they didn't get it. The water was the only place my brain stopped spinning. Above the surface, everything felt complicated—college applications looming like storm clouds, friendships shifting like sand, this weird thing with Maya that I didn't know how to name. Below? Just silence and blue.

Then came the zombie phase.

It started innocently enough—me and Maya watching old zombie movies on cable TV at her house because her parents still paid for it like it was 2005. "Zombie Apocalypse: The Classic Collection," complete with grainy picture and commercials we'd fast-forward through anyway. We'd lie on her floor surrounded by snacks, making fun of the terrible effects and yelling at characters who obviously deserved to get eaten.

"You're basically a zombie," Maya said one afternoon, poking my arm. I'd just worked a double shift and could barely keep my eyes open.

"Am not," I protested, but it came out more like a zombie groan.

"Are too. You're all gray and you move in slow motion and you only want brains. Or in your case, sleep."

She laughed, and I did too, even though my heart was doing this weird fluttery thing that had nothing to do with sleep deprivation.

The weird thing about watching all those zombie movies was how they made everything else feel urgent. Like, if actual zombies were coming, I wouldn't waste time being afraid to tell Maya how I felt. I'd just say it. But there were no zombies. Just me, overthinking everything.

Until the cable went out.

We were mid-movie—something about a zombie outbreak at a beach resort—when the screen flickered and died. Maya flopped onto her back. "Well, this sucks."

"We could just... talk," I suggested, immediately regretting it.

"About what?" She rolled onto her side, looking at me.

I almost made a joke. Almost deflected. But then I thought about zombies, about how they were people who'd stopped really living, and I didn't want to be that.

"About how I like you," I said. "Not like friends."

The silence stretched long enough that I started calculating survival routes. But then Maya smiled.

"Finally," she said. "I was starting to think I'd have to turn into a zombie to get your attention."

That night, I floated in my pool at home, staring up at the stars. The water held me up like it always did, but something had shifted. I wasn't swimming away from anything anymore. I was swimming toward something.