Vitamin C and Screen Dreams

The **water** in McKenzie's pool glittered like someone had dumped entire craft store's worth of glitter into it. Maya stood at the edge, clutching her towel like a lifeline, painfully aware that everyone else was already splashing around like they'd been born in chlorine.

"You coming in or what?" Ryan called from the deep end. He was treading water, his hair plastered to his forehead in that annoyingly perfect way.

"Yeah, just gotta grab something from my bag," Maya lied, cheeks burning. She grabbed her **iPhone** and pretended to check urgent messages. In reality, she opened Instagram and navigated to Ryan's profile—again. She'd made a fake account last month just to **spy** on his posts without him knowing she was watching. Pathetic? Maybe. Necessary? Unfortunately, yes.

Her mom had started her on these massive **vitamin** D supplements last winter after the doctor said she was deficient. "They'll help with everything," her mom had promised. So far, the only thing they'd helped with was making Maya feel like a giant capsule-popping failure every morning.

"Maya!" McKenzie yelled. "Truth or dare! And if you say truth, I swear to god—"

"Dare," Maya said automatically, because that's what you did when you were fifteen and terrified of actual vulnerability.

"I dare you to jump in with your clothes on!" McKenzie cackled.

Maya's stomach dropped. She'd spent forty-five minutes picking this outfit. But then Ryan caught her eye from the pool and grinned, and suddenly she was yanking her phone from her pocket—hesitating—then tossing it onto a lawn chair.

"Whatever."

She jumped.

The water shocked her cold, then warm, then everything at once. When she broke the surface, sopping wet and fully clothed, everyone was losing it. But Ryan was still smiling at her, actually looking at her, really seeing her, and Maya realized she'd been so busy watching his life through a screen that she'd forgotten to actually live her own.

Later, when she'd dried off and her phone was back in her hand, she deleted the fake account. Some things were better experienced in person anyway.