Wettmelons Guide

He splashed back.

“It’s degrading,” Selene muttered, adjusting the strap of her second-hand one-piece. WettMelons

Taking a breath that felt like borrowing courage from a future, braver version of herself, Selene lowered into the water. The cold was a shock, a baptism. She pushed off the wall, elbows flailing like a wounded duck. He splashed back

He smiled. A real one. Then, he did something unexpected. He pushed off his blue ring, let it drift away, and grabbed the edge of her chipped watermelon. The cold was a shock, a baptism

She was the only one not in the water.

“You did it!” Maya yanked her into a hug. “You absolute maniac.”

Halfway down the lane, her arms screaming, she felt something give. Not her muscles. The heavy curtain of self-consciousness she’d worn all summer, the one that told her she was too gangly, too quiet, too much in some ways and not enough in others. She laughed, a real, bubbling laugh that filled her mouth with chlorine.