That is literally something no one has ever said to me before.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah. How about y—”

But Miguel’s already turned to head out to the pool.

He’s just as strange during practice. Any time someone brings up how well he did at our last meet, Miguel just shrugs. Normally he’s all “Thanks, man” and has that perfect way of bringing a compliment around to somebody else and making them feel like they’ll be the star of the team the next time we swim. Later when he stretches, he literally puts his foot right in front of Randal Wiggins, who trips and nearly smashes his nose against the pool stepladder. And when Coach pulls the two of us aside to say we are the top two ranked for our school and he expects us to pull through for Shoreline High at the state qualifiers, Miguel only nods and heads to the lockers instead of giving his usual captain pep talk at the end of every practice.

He’s not his normal, shining, most-popular-kid-in-school self at all.

I’ve only seen him like this once before. It was when his tío Ricardo died in seventh grade. He hardly spoke for a month, sitting beside me while we played video games in complete silence. He may be the guy I got left for, but I don’t want to see Miguel hurt like this.

“Hey, Miguel. You all right?”

Miguel meets my eyes, and I swear they’ve welled up with tears. While I may have seen him silent and sad before, I’ve never seen him cry.

He opens his mouth to speak, but is immediately cut off by speakers squealing to life. It makes my teeth itch and Miguel slap his hands over his ears. The squeal is immediately followed by Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande’s “Rain on Me.” It’s so loud I’m sure they can hear this back in Pacifica.

Alex Vargas bolts from the announcer booth, a microphone in his hand, and clangs down the bleachers. He stops in front of his boyfriend, Omar Perez, who looks like he’s sure he’s about to get punked. Alex screams into a microphone, creating his own remix to Lady Gaga’s lyrics, “I may not be dry, but at least I’m in love.” Then adds his own words: “When you’re around, Omar, I’m always wet!”

The team loses their minds at that, all of us hollering and whistling and cackling.