Wettmelons Direct

Selene winced. The bet. A stupid argument about who could hold their breath longer while doing calculus in their heads. She’d lost. The price? She had to swim the length of the pool using only her elbows, screaming “WettMelons” at the top of her lungs.

Selene looked around. At Maya, who was locked in an epic inflatable orca joust with a kid in a pirate ship. At the elderly woman doing gentle backstrokes, singing show tunes. At the chaos, the joy, the complete and utter weirdness. WettMelons

“Can I join the WettMelons crew?” he asked. Selene winced

And there, under the lantern-lit sky, on a beat-up float shaped like a fruit, two teenagers who’d been too afraid to jump in finally started to swim. She’d lost

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.

“There’s always space,” Selene said, surprising herself. “You just have to be willing to look like a drowning duck for a minute.”

She reached the other side, gasping, victorious. Maya was already there, howling.