Hunter sat at the edge of the pool, the backs of his heels pressed against its concrete walls, his palms attached to the bullnose coping with an frigid grip. The water was cold, cold enough that he refused to jump, and even though his legs and feet no longer felt prickly and numb, he couldn’t submerge himself further. His mother and older sister chatted in adjacent lounge chairs, children splashed about in the shallow end, a speaker somewhere belted car radio pop hits—he was comfortable here, even though he felt awkward glued to his seat while his best friend dove after tiny rubber dive toys. He put one hand to his forehead to block the afternoon sun, and glanced to either side. Besides his family and Ant, there were perhaps two dozen strangers scattered about, besides those yet to arrive, or those hidden in the row of cabanas off in the distance, busy for now with a deck of cards and gullible company. All of them would see him stand up, they would see him take off his shirt, and they would watch his body as he floundered about in the chlorinated expanse.

            Ant dove to collect a toy. He kicked off the wall, then let his momentum carry him for a few moments. He tucked in his knees, pitched forwards, and pushed down with a frog leg kick. Bubbles stormed the surface of the water and the pre-teen boy became a distortion, a rippled mirage of the person Hunter had grown up with. Though he’d never have admitted it then, he had long resented Ant’s ability to dive in without a second thought, and wished that, just once, he’d wait for him. Ant was the diver, the doer, the decision maker, and Hunter waited. On street corners, by landlines. Poolside. His friend was not a punctual person (a trait, unbeknownst to the two boys, that he shared with his parents), and he tended to wear Hunter’s patience thin as he held up carpools, overpacked for day trips, turned fives into five thirties. It was as if he had this confidence or selfishness or general lack of urgency, some voice in his head that told him to move at his own pace. In the opposite sense, when they’d arrived at the pool with Hunter’s family and Hunter had hung back, afraid, Ant tore off his clothes and grabbed a handful of toys from Hunter’s mom’s bag. Words spilled out of his mouth: I’m gonna swim and you’re welcome to join me and if you don’t wanna go in that’s fine you can throw the dive toys and I’ll get them, that’ll be fun. Okay, Hunter had replied, and his mom peered at him, through eyes only someone who raised you could make, before she flashed a somber smile, turned, and continued to admonish his sister about how she needed at least a little lotion if she wanted to tan. You’ll burn if you just sit there, she said.

            Ant resurfaced. He tossed a rubber orca onto a pile that would make an aquarium proud (or not, maybe), then hoisted himself onto the ledge beside Hunter. He did this effortlessly, as if hidden in his skinny arms was the strength of a bodybuilder. Hunter felt a twinge of anxiety—he preferred the ladder, its kind, stoic rungs, to his friend’s approach, which for him looked like the struggle of a beached whale. Ant counted the toys, ten in total, then arranged them into a neat row. Water droplets meandered down his back and onto the fabric of his bathing suit.

            “I’m tired. It’s nice and warm up here,” he said. Hunter disagreed. It was hot. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and he could feel the sun’s breath on the back of his neck.

            “Yeah.”

            “Do you wanna switch?”

            Hunter shrugged. His lower back itched, and he reached around to rub it through the fabric of his superhero tee. “Fine, but I’m gonna keep my shirt on,” he replied, and when Ant didn’t immediately respond he added, “I’ve worn this shirt in the pool tons of times.” Then he got up, took a few steps back, ran forward and cannonballed into the water.

            The first sensation was ice. Ice on his calves and his scalp and his stomach, ice that felt like panic. But unlike worry, panic was momentary, and after a few moments he slipped into a placid calm. Pockets of oxygen tickled his skin as they rose to the surface, and he floated in place a few feet under the surface. It was as if he’d drifted off into a heavy sleep. Sometimes, when he lied restless in bed at two, three in the morning, he remembered that feeling, and would doze off before running out of breath. Now, slowly, he rose to the surface, filled his lungs and swam over to the ladder. Underwater his shirt bobbed around, but as he rose it clung to him like sticky rice.

            “Ready?” Ant called out. Hunter peeled his shirt away from his skin so that it hung loosely over his form before he left the ladder. The toys were bunched up in his friend’s cupped palms.

            “Wait,” he said as he speedwalked over, and then again. “Wait. Throw them in one at a time, I’m gonna dive after them.”

            “Can I throw them all in afterwards? It’s more fun to watch them sink together. Like a whole school.”

            “After. But then I get two turns.”

            “Not in a row!” he whined.

            “Come on, I haven’t gone yet.”

            Ant balanced the toys against his chest with one hand, then grabbed a trout as if it were a dartfish. “Ok, fine. In a row. But you only get one try, and if you don’t get them all I get the rest.”

            “Deal.” Hunter pinched the front of his shirt again. He knew Ant’s plan, he would throw them on opposite ends of the deep end, but in the end they each would get a turn and a half, so it worked out. “Now toss one,” he said.

            The trout torpedoed into the water without a splash and Hunter pencil-dived after it, with his legs together and his arms above his head, upright. His sister taught him how to dive the regular way; but once, he stumbled on his way in and smashed his big toe on the end of the ledge, and even though it looked fine and he told his mom he didn’t need to go to the hospital or anything, it hurt to walk on for months, and after that it scared him to dive head first. So he pencil-dove and the rush of ice came and he was determined to touch the uneven concrete at the bottom of the pool before the toy did and he couldn’t see anything and he couldn’t hear anything except for the water as it passed his ears and he didn’t notice for a second that his shirt had slipped right off his body and floated in water above him, a green blob that looked more like an inexplicable patch of seaweed or algae than an article of clothing.

            In fact, it was only after Hunter grabbed the trout, after he noticed how much lighter he felt, and after he felt the water on his bare skin wrap around him like a blanket, that he looked down and saw how his stomach protruded above his bathing suit. His eyes bugged and his head whipped around and he couldn’t breathe. The shirt was within arm’s reach and he snatched it, pushed off the bottom and broke the surface. He tossed the thing next to Ant, who sat cross-legged as he tried to juggle two sharks and an oddly proportioned stingray.

            “No more pool shirt?” he asked, not looking away from his task.

            “It came off.” But now he didn’t have it anymore, and the idea of the coping against his bare skin made him nauseous. “Can you toss it towards the ladder for me?”

            “Why bother? It’s just gonna come off again.”

            “No it won’t. I’ll hold it.”

            And he did—eventually. First he shoved his head through the heavy, unresponsive, generally sodden shirt hole, stretched it onto his body, and then peeled it away from his skin again. It embarrassed him how much he floundered about, blind with the shirt in his face and then blind to the world as he adjusted it. Then when Ant threw the dive toy and he jumped in after it the shirt slipped out of his hands and though it was caught by his arms it bunched up around his chest like a sports bra or a crop top. He smoothed it down as soon as he got to the ladder but not before Ant had a chuckle at his expense. On his third dive it came off again.

            “Dude, just leave it,” Ant said when he resurfaced.

            “I—” Before Hunter could respond, Ant took another toy and threw it in the water. From his perch on the bullnose, he watched its high arc over his head. He squinted as it passed in front of the sun and tracked its motion under the water. Sun-glittered ripples caused it to rock, back and forth, back and forth, until it became a speck eight feet down. Still shirtless, he dove down and picked it up. It felt weightless until it was above water. He told Ant that he wanted a break, that it could be his turn, and his friend jumped in without another word while he took the ladder out and sat down by the now-scattered pile of toys.

            Hunter put one hand to his forehead to block the late afternoon sun. A girl who couldn’t have been more than five splashed into the deep end and swam freestyle back towards the shallow end, where a man who could’ve been her father or her older brother picked her up in his arms. Two women tanning on lounge chairs chatted about a video game he’d heard of, but never played. A off-key chorus sang happy birthday by the cabanas. Much later—once the pool’s clear-blue water is clouded by nostalgia—he will look back on this day fondly.