The Summer I Didn't Drown

I didn't want to go to the country club. Mom said it'd be "good for me," which is parent-speak for "you have no friends and I'm worried." So there I was, standing by the **pool** in my too-big board shorts, watching the popular kids float by on inflatable flamingos like they owned the water.

"Hey new kid," someone yelled. "Wanna play **padel**?"

I'd never played. I'd barely even heard of it. But Maya—the Maya Chen, who had sat behind me in bio since freshman year and never once acknowledged my existence—was standing there with a racquet, looking at me.

"Sure," I said, like my entire life wasn't suddenly depending on not embarrassing myself.

Padel was weird. Like tennis but smaller, with walls you could hit off. I missed everything. My serves went into the fence. One nearly took out a garden gnome. Maya laughed, but not mean. Like, actually laughed.

"You're terrible," she said. "It's kinda iconic honestly."

"Iconic?" I'd never been called iconic. I'd been called quiet, weird, "that kid who sits in the library." But never iconic.

A **dog**—a golden retriever with one ear that flopped and one that stood straight up—came trotting onto the court, stole my ball, and collapsed at Maya's feet like he'd just run a marathon.

"That's Buster," she said. "He's the real MVP here."

We ended up sitting by the pool while Buster chased his tail in circles, somehow more athletic than I'd ever been. Maya told me she'd been held back twice in math. I told her I still slept with a stuffed octopus. We talked until the sun went down and the pool lights flickered on.

"Same time tomorrow?" she asked.

I showed up the next day. And the next. I was still terrible at padel. But for the first time ever, I didn't feel like I was drowning.