The Summer I Learned to Float

The first time I saw her, she was wiping out spectacularly on the **padel** court at the country club where my mom had dragged me for 'summer networking opportunities.' Her name was Maya, and she didn't care that her pleated skirt was twisted or that everyone was staring.

"You're **friend** number three today," she'd said, handing me a racket that smelled like coconut sunscreen. "Hope you're better than the last guy. He kept hitting the fence."

I was terrible at padel. Maya was terrible at padel. We spent the summer being terrible together, laughing so hard we'd have to sit on the bench while our moms pretended not to know us from their lounge chairs by the **pool**.

"It's basically tennis for people who can't commit," Maya said one day, twirling her racket like a baton. "It's fine. We're fine."

The real magic happened after padel, when we'd sneak to her house. Her room was a shrine to organized chaos—posters of bands I'd never heard of, a collection of mismatched mugs, and Barnaby, her obese orange **cat** who acted more like a dog than a feline overlord. Barnaby would sprawl across my homework while Maya ranted about how her parents wanted her to be a doctor, a lawyer, literally anything that wasn't an artist.

"They give me these **vitamin** supplements now," she'd say, shaking a bottle with suspicious-looking orange pills. "For focus. For energy. For not being myself."

The day before school started, we sat by the community pool until the lifeguards kicked us out. The water was that perfect twilight blue, and everything felt possible and impossible all at once.

"What if we're just friend-ing because we're both lonely?" I asked suddenly. The words tasted like copper.

Maya didn't laugh. She tied her wet hair back with a bandana she'd stolen from her sister's room. "Or what if we're friend-ing because we found someone who doesn't need fixing?"

Barnaby would have approved. Barnaby never needed fixing, and he certainly never took vitamins.

Maya moved away sophomore year. Last I heard, she's studying graphic design in California. Sometimes when I'm stressed, I still buy those terrible orange vitamins just to remember: some summers are meant for being terrible at things with people who make you want to be brave.

Some friendships don't need to last forever to change you forever.