Chlorine and Confidence

Maya stood at the edge of Jake's pool party, clutching her towel like a lifeline. Her natural curls had already started to frizz in the humidity, and she felt painfully aware of how different she looked from the girls with sleek, straight hair falling perfectly over their shoulders.

She'd barely spoken to anyone since arriving, too busy overthinking every interaction. That's when she noticed Jake — the sphinx himself. He leaned against the patio furniture, unreadable as ever, with those dark eyes that gave away absolutely nothing. How did people just know what to say around him?

Maya's stomach did that annoying flip-flop thing. She grabbed another spinach puff from the snack table, anything to look busy. She'd been stress-eating the whole time.

"Hey, you gonna swim or just hold up the snack table?" A voice behind her made her jump.

She spun around to find Jake standing there, smirking slightly. Something green was stuck between her teeth. Spinach. Of course.

"I —" She started to reply, but her brain short-circuited. The water looked incredibly inviting right about now. Without thinking, she tossed her towel onto a lounge chair and cannonballed into the pool, chlorine and cool water swallowing her whole.

When she surfaced, spluttering, Jake was standing at the edge, actually laughing. A real laugh, not his usual mysterious half-smile.

"You know," he called, "you had spinach in your teeth."

Maya's face burned. She glided backward in the water, ready to vanish.

"I was trying to figure out how to tell you without being weird." Jake sat down at the edge, dangling his legs in. "But then you made it easy by dramatically fleeing the scene."

She rolled her eyes but found herself smiling. "You're the worst."

"I get that a lot." He kicked some water at her. "Your hair looks cool, by the way. Mine does this weird thing in the humidity too, but I just pretend it's artistic."

Maya touched her damp curls. They were a mess, but somehow, that didn't feel so terrible anymore.

"You want to race?" Jake asked. "Loser has to eat more spinach puffs."

"You're on."

Maybe sphinxes weren't so unreadable after all. Maybe you just had to jump in the water to figure them out.