Poolside Riddles

Maya's palms were sweating — straight-up nasty — as she clutched the plastic **vitamin** bottle in her pocket like it was some magical elixir that could cure freshman awkwardness. Her older cousin had sworn these things would fix her "social anxiety," but honestly? They just made her pee neon yellow.

The *real* reason she'd popped two before leaving the house became clear as she stepped into the Thompsons' backyard: the legendary *end-of-school* *pool* party. The kind where *someone* always ended up crying in the bathroom and another *someone* hooked up with their crush on the diving board.

And then she saw him: Caleb, currently holding court with the seniors by the deep end, acting like a total *bull* — chest puffed out, voice loud, that infuriatingly cute confidence radiating off him like heat waves. Maya's stomach did something gymnastic.

"Hey!" Her best friend Jacy materialized, yanking her toward a cluster of lawn chairs. "Mrs. Thompson's probably still pissed about her *cable* bill, but whatever — her dad's like, VP at something, so they're rich enough not to care."

Maya nodded vaguely, already panicking. Her brain had decided to offer approximately zero help with normal human conversation topics. That's when she noticed it: the conversation had drifted to mythology class. *Mythology*. The one subject she'd actually paid attention to all semester.

"The *sphinx*'s riddle wasn't even that hard," some sophomore was saying, super dismissive. "Like, what walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in evening? Obviously a human."

Maya opened her mouth before her brain could register the terrible idea forming.

"But that's the point," she heard herself saying. Every head turned. Caleb's too. Her heart nearly exploded. "The *sphinx* wasn't testing intelligence — she was testing whether you'd accept your own mortality. That's why Oedipus was the only one who could answer. He was cool with being human."

Caleb blinked. Then grinned. "That's... actually really deep."

"Thanks," Maya squeaked, suddenly extremely aware of the vitamin bottle still pressing against her hip, of Jacy nodding like she'd known this all along, of the fact that her voice had not cracked.

And when Caleb splashed water at her two minutes later, Maya didn't run. She splashed back. Maybe the vitamins were garbage. Maybe she didn't need them after all.