Poolside Riddles

Maya pulled the brim of her dad's old baseball hat down lower over her eyes. It was her shield—a literal and metaphorical barrier between her and the absolute catastrophe that was Tyler's end-of-summer pool party.

She wasn't supposed to be here. Not really. Everyone else was part of Tyler's friend group since like, kindergarten. Maya? She was the new girl who'd moved to town three weeks before sophomore year. The fact that she'd even been invited was probably some administrative error or Tyler's mom making him invite the whole class.

"Yo, Maya! You gonna swim or just play sphinx all day?" Kaitlyn yelled from the pool edge, splashing water dramatically. Kaitlyn was gorgeous in that effortless way that made Maya's chest hurt. Tyler's obvious crush didn't help matters either.

The sphinx comment stung more than Kaitlyn meant it to. Maya HAD been quiet, but not because she was mysterious. She was strategic. In her first two weeks, she'd learned more about this school's social web than most people learned in four years. She wasn't being standoffish; she was basically a social spy, gathering intel before making her move. If you said the wrong thing to the wrong person, you were done for.

Tyler's golden retriever, Barnaby, chose that moment to bounds over and shake his wet fur all over Maya's jeans.

"BARNABY!" Tyler rushed over, looking ridiculously apologetic. "Dude, I'm so sorry. He has zero chill."

Maya laughed despite herself. "It's fine. I needed a cool-down anyway."

She looked at Tyler—really looked at him. He wasn't some unapproachable god of the sophomore class. He was just a guy with an overenthusiastic dog and really terrible dad jokes. Kaitlyn, currently doing a dramatic interpretive dance to whatever song was playing, wasn't an intimidating queen bee either. Just someone who talked too much when she was nervous.

The sphinx riddle wasn't about being mysterious. It was about realizing that everyone was just pretending to know what they were doing.

Maya took off the hat. "You know what?" she said, kicking off her flip-flops. "I think I will swim."

She cannonballed into the deep end, and for the first time since moving here, she didn't overthink the splash.