The Summer I Learned to Float

The heat wave had turned everything sticky, including my social life. Two weeks into summer break and I'd already been ghosted by the friend group I'd spent all year trying to impress. So when Maya—the quiet girl from my English class—invited me to her pool party, I almost said no. Almost.

"Bring your swimsuit," she'd said, avoiding eye contact in the hallway. "It's gonna be chill."

Chill turned out to be an understatement. Maya's backyard was basically an oasis, complete with an actual inground pool and a golden retriever named Nacho who greeted everyone like they were his long-lost best friend. I stood there in my too-expensive bikini, feeling like a total fraud.

Then I saw him. Liam from AP Chem, doing cannonballs off the diving board while everyone cheered. My stomach did this embarrassing little flip-flop thing that had nothing to do with the two slices of pizza I'd awkwardly eaten while pretending to be fascinated by Maya's mom's garden.

"You gonna stand there all day looking like a zombie, or are you gonna get in?"

I jumped. Liam was right there, water dripping from his hair, grinning like he knew something I didn't. His eyes were the color of pool water on a sunny day.

"I'm thinking about it," I managed, which was lame. So lame.

"The water's perfect," he said, splashing me.

I yelped. "You did not just—"

"Come on. I'll race you to the other side."

Something shifted in my chest. Maybe it was the way the sun caught the water droplets on his shoulders. Maybe it was the fact that Maya was now animatedly talking to the very people who'd ignored me all year, completely fine without me. Or maybe I was just tired of being the person who stood on the edges watching everyone else live.

I jumped.

The water was cool against my skin, shocking and perfect. I surfaced, sputtering, to find Liam laughing.

"You're slow," he said.

"Am not."

"Are too. Also, you have something in your hair."

He reached out, and time went all weird and suspended. My heart was doing something frantic and wild, like a goldfish realizing its bowl was actually the entire ocean.

Then the sky opened up.

It wasn't rain—it was a full-on summer thunderstorm, complete with lightning that turned the whole backyard purple-blue for one perfect, crystalline second. Everyone screamed and scrambled for the covered porch, but I stayed floating on my back, looking up at the darkening sky, feeling the rain mix with pool water on my skin.

"You're gonna get struck by lightning," Liam called from the edge, but he was smiling.

"Worth it," I yelled back. And for the first time all summer, I meant it.

Later, wrapped in a towel and shivering happily, Maya passed me a cup of hot chocolate. "Glad you came," she said, and I knew she meant it.

Liam sat beside me. "Same time next week?"

"Definitely," I said.

Nacho the dog curled up at my feet. I watched the rain blur the pool's surface until it looked like liquid silver. Tomorrow I'd have to figure out how to navigate high school's complicated social ecosystem again. But tonight, I'd learned to swim against the current, and I'd discovered I didn't drown—I floated.