The Vitamin Summer

Maya's palms were sweating—like, actually sweating—while she stared at the bottle of neon orange gummy vitamins on her kitchen counter. Her mom had bought them because 'growing teens need their nutrients,' but Maya suspected they were actually some kind of placebo for the summer panic that had been radiating off her since school ended.

"You're not seriously still stressing about the pool party?" Her older brother, Jordan, leaned against the doorframe, crunching an apple. "It's literally just Tyler's house. He's not even that cute."

"That's not the point!" Maya grabbed a vitamin gummy and chewed it aggressively. "The point is, everyone's going to be in swimsuits. And I haven't been swimming since—" She stopped. Since the incident last summer at Jenna's party, where she'd done a complete face-plant entering the pool and her top had shifted and okay, she was not going to finish that sentence.

"Since last summer?" Jordan finished for her, because brothers were annoying like that. "Maya, nobody remembers that."

"Jenna definitely remembers. She literally brought it up when we were studying for finals. 'Hey Maya, remember that dive?'"

He shrugged. "Jenna's a drama queen. Also, those vitamins aren't going to help you swim better."

That was the thing about summer—everything felt high-stakes. Every Instagram story was someone at a beach, someone by a pool, someone living their best life while Maya was over here dissecting social interactions like they were AP Chemistry. She grabbed two more vitamin gummies. What? They were delicious.

The night of the party, Maya stood on the deck, clutching her towel like a security blanket. The pool lights were glowing blue, people were laughing, and somewhere someone was playing that song that had been stuck in everyone's head for weeks. Then Tyler actually waved at her.

"Hey! You coming in?"

Her palms were sweating again. She could make an excuse—she'd forgotten her swimsuit, she had cramps, she was suddenly allergic to water.

Instead, she dropped the towel.

"Yeah," she said, and the word felt like jumping off a diving board. "Yeah, I'm coming."

She cannonballed into the deep end, resurfacing to find Tyler laughing and Jenna already dunking someone. And maybe it wasn't that deep. Maybe it was just swimming. But later that night, lying in bed and feeling that weird exhaustion that came from hours in the pool, Maya grabbed another vitamin gummy from the jar on her nightstand.

She'd figure out the rest of summer tomorrow.