Vitamins and Vertigo

I was standing at the deep end of the Hendersons' pool, clutching a bottle of fluorescent orange gummy vitamins like they were contraband. My hair—that I'd spent two hours trying to curl into beach waves that my hair type absolutely did not want to be—was already surrendering to the humidity. Frizz city. Population: me.

"You look like you're about to jump off a building," said a voice behind me.

I turned around. Marcus. The guy who'd sat behind me in sophomore English and never spoken to me once. Now he was wearing swim trunks and holding a HDMI cable like it was a snake.

"Just debating whether these vitamins are worth the choking hazard," I said, holding up the bottle. "My mom's new wellness phase. I'm basically a test subject."

Marcus laughed, and it was this actual, genuine sound—not the polite laugh I'd heard him give to presentations in class. "My mom tried to get me into collagen supplements last month. I looked them up and apparently they're made from fish bones. Hard pass."

"Gross," I said, grinning despite myself.

"What are you doing back here anyway? The party's that way." He pointed toward the shallow end where people were playing music from someone's phone through—yep, a portable speaker connected by aux cable to God knows what.

"Avoiding, mostly."

"Same." Marcus dropped the cable onto a lawn chair. "I was supposed to help Mr. Henderson fix the TV. Turns out I know more about HDMI cables than he does, which is honestly tragic."

"So you're hiding from tech support duty?"

"Exactly. You hiding from anything specific?"

I touched my hair self-consciously. "My curling iron betrayed me. Also, I don't really swim."

"You don't swim? At a pool party? Bold choice."

"What about you? Why aren't you out there?"

Marcus looked at his feet. Then he held out his hand, palm up. "Read my palm. I dare you."

"What?"

"You heard me. Read my palm. Tell me my future."

"I don't know how to read palms."

"Perfect. Neither do I. Make something up."

So I took his hand—which was warm and calloused from who knows what—and studied the lines like they contained actual answers. "Okay, um, this line means you're going to survive sophomore year. This one means you'll eventually fix that TV. And this tiny one here..."

"What about that one?"

"That one," I said, meeting his eyes, "means you're about to jump in that pool. Fully clothed. With me."

Marcus blinked. Then he grinned. "Bet."

We jumped in together, vitamins forgotten on the deck, cable coiled uselessly on a lawn chair, my hair dissolving into whatever shape it actually wanted to be. Sometimes the worst nights turn into the best stories. Sometimes gummy vitamins are just vitamins. And sometimes the person you least expect gets why you're standing alone at a pool party, deciding whether to jump.