Thunder in the Chlorine

The orange bucket hat sat perched on my head like a neon flag announcing I was Trying Too Hard. Mia's text had said pool party vibe casual but nothing about Mia Chen's sixteenth birthday was ever casual.

I stood at the edge of her in-ground pool, clutching my towel like a security blanket. Everyone else was already in the water, laughing and splashing like they'd been born with gills. Tyler, with his perfect abs and zero shirt, was doing cannonballs off the diving board while Beth and her friends floated on inflatables, their makeup somehow waterproof.

"You coming in or what?" Tyler called, grinning.

My stomach did that thing it always did when cute boys spoke to me directly — a weird mix of excitement and nausea. "Yeah, just warming up."

"The water's fine!" someone else yelled.

I adjusted my stupid hat. I'd bought it yesterday thinking quirky accessory, now I looked like a lost suburban dad at a Coachella festival. But taking it off meant revealing my hair, which I'd flat-ironed for forty minutes this morning and would now turn into a frizzy disaster the second it got wet.

So many choices, all of them wrong.

Then I saw her — Chloe, the new girl from AP Bio, sitting alone on a lounge chair, scrolling through her phone with deliberate intensity. She wasn't swimming either. Was she awkward too? Or just over it?

A rumble of thunder rolled across the sky.

"Storm's coming!" Mia's mom called from the back door. "Everybody out!"

People groaned and started climbing out of the pool. I was still standing there like an idiot, my decision made for me.

Chloe looked up, caught my eye, and smirked. "Guess we dodged that bullet."

I laughed before I could stop myself. "My hat and I appreciate the save."

"It's bold." She gestured at my head. "I like it."

A flash of lightning split the sky, bright and sudden as a camera flash. The first heavy drops of rain began to fall, warm and weird on my skin.

"I'm Maya," I said.

"Chloe." She stood up. "Want to get out of this rain? There's orange soda in the cooler inside."

The rain came harder then, pouring down like the sky was making up for lost time. I pulled off my stupid hat and shook out my hair. Whatever. Frizz was fine.

"Lead the way."