Three Percent

The pool party raged around me, bass thumping, bodies canonballing, laughter exploding like glitter. I clutched my iphone against my chest like a shield, screen displaying three percent battery, my lifeline to looking busy, popular, unbothered.

Then I saw him—Leo, dripping wet, grinning that smile that made my stomach perform full gymnastics routines. He waved. I waved back, too enthusiastic, and my phone slipped.

Time stretched into syrup as it plummeted—screen flashing, case catching sunlight—before plunging straight into the deep end.

"No!"

Leo was already moving, diving cleanly, surfacing with my phone dripping between his fingers like a drowned rat. "Sorry," he said, grinning. "Your cable too?"

My charging cable had fallen in after it, snail-curled on the pool deck.

"It's fine," I lied, my face hot enough to fry an egg. "Totally fine."

He looked at my phone, then at me, then back at my phone. "Wanna dry it off? I've got a hair dryer inside."

"Yeah. Thanks."

We sat on the bathroom floor, him blow-drying my iphone while I watched water bead on his arms, thinking how this was supposed to be humiliating but somehow wasn't. His mom knocked, asked if we wanted snacks. We said yes, laughing.

Later, pool lights reflecting on the water, he handed me my phone—still dead, still wet.

"It might work," he said. "Give it a few days."

"Or it might not," I said, and realized I didn't care.

"Good," he said, and his fingers brushed mine. "Because I was gonna say—you don't need it anyway."

The rest of the night blurred—cannonballs and chicken fights, his hand on my waist, my phone forgotten at the bottom of a pool that had somehow become exactly where I needed to be.