The Summer I Learned to Float

The pool party at Jenna's house was supposed to be casual but somehow everyone looked like they'd stepped out of a TikTok. Meanwhile, I hovered by the snack table, nursing a melting orange popsicle and feeling like a fraud in my two-piece that I'd bought three days ago after twenty minutes of spiraling in the Target dressing room.

"You coming in or what?" Marcus called from the deep end. He had that lazy grin that made my stomach do Olympic gymnastics, possibly because he was the varsity baseball pitcher and therefore basically royalty at our school. Or because I'd been lowkey obsessed with him since seventh grade math when he let me copy his homework during that week I had mono.

"Yeah, just warming up," I lied, wiping sticky orange juice from my thumb. My cat,Oreo, would be judging me so hard right now. That cat had more dignity in one paw than I had in my entire socially awkward body.

The real problem wasn't the swimming part—I'd been on swim team since I was seven. The problem was the new tattoo on my shoulder blade that my mom didn't know about. A tiny bear silhouette, because I'd felt "powerful and misunderstood" when I got it at my cousin's friend's apartment with a sketchy kit and way too much confidence. Now I was three weeks into covering it up with long sleeves and strategic angles, and the pool party assassination squad had finally cornered me.

"Bear creek," I said randomly, because my brain had short-circuited.

"What?" Marcus paddled closer.

"Nothing. Internal joke. My brain is broken." I was officially going to die of embarrassment before turning sixteen. Meanwhile, Jenna's cat—a calico named Pickles—sat on the patio furniture watching me like I was entertainment.

"You good?" Marcus was genuinely close now, treading water in that effortlessly athletic way that made me want to simultaneously kiss him and become a monk.

"Just contemplating my entire existence and how I ended up here," I said, surprising myself with honesty. "Also, I'm not great at the whole 'chill vibes' thing."

"Nobody is," he said, splashing water my direction. "We're all just pretending we know what we're doing. Also, your popsicle is dripping on your dad's old shirt."

I looked down. An orange stain was spreading across my favorite oversized flannel. I started laughing—I couldn't help it. This whole day was a disaster.

"Want me to distract everyone while you escape?" Marcus offered with a conspiratorial wink.

"You're a solid dude, Marcus Chen."

"I try." He swam toward the diving board. "Hey Jenna, watch this—" and then promptly belly-flopped so hard I felt it in my bones.

The whole party erupted. He surfaced, grinning and shaking water from his hair like he'd planned the whole thing. Just like that, everyone was watching him instead of me.

I touched my shoulder through the wet flannel, thinking about my secret bear tattoo. Maybe that was the thing about growing up—you could spend all this energy hiding parts of yourself, but sometimes the people who mattered would create distractions without you even asking. They'd take the belly-flops so you could stay afloat.

I finished my melted popsicle, wiped my sticky hands on my shorts, and finally jumped in the pool.