Midnight at the Sphinx's Pool

Maya lay on her bed feeling like a literal zombie. Three nights of staying up until 3 AM finishing her AP Art portfolio would do that to you. Her phone buzzed—group chat blowing up about Jordan's pool party tonight, the last hurrah before everyone scattered to different colleges.

"You coming?" Sasha had texted. "Don't make me drag you out of your cave."

Maya groaned and shoved herself up. Swimming at midnight with people who'd been her friends since middle school but suddenly felt like strangers? The sphinx outside the school library had more social life than she did lately.

Her cat, Bast, wound around her ankles like she knew. Maya scooped her up. "You're the only one who gets it, B. Everyone's changing. I'm just... stuck."

By the time she arrived at Jordan's, most people were already in the pool, laughter cutting through the humid night. Sasha spotted her and waved from the edge, water dripping from her hair.

"Finally! Zombie Maya rises!" Sasha called, and everyone laughed. But not meanly—they'd all been there, the hollowed-out feeling of too much everything.

Maya slipped into the water, the cool shock waking something inside her. They all floated on their backs, staring up at the sky, talking about everything and nothing. Prom disasters. College applications. The weird limbo of being almost-grown.

"Remember when we thought high school would be like the movies?" Jordan asked quietly.

"More like a sphinx riddle we can't solve," someone said, and they all laughed because it was true.

Later, Maya found herself on the pool deck with Sasha, watching everyone else. Sasha's cat, a sleek black thing Jordan's family had adopted, hopped onto the lounge chair between them like a tiny furry mediator.

"I'm scared," Maya admitted finally. "That I'll change and lose everyone. Or that I won't change at all."

Sasha bumped her shoulder. "We're all zombies walking through it together. But look around—" she gestured at their friends, still splashing in the pool lights. "Some things don't change. We've got each other's backs. Always have."

Maya looked at the cat, now purring between them, at her friends who felt less like strangers again. Maybe the riddle wasn't about changing or staying the same. Maybe it was about learning to swim through the unknown without drowning.

"Yeah," Maya said, slipping back into the water. "Together."

The cat watched them go, inscrutable as any sphinx, as they all floated under the stars, exactly where they needed to be.