Poolside Sphinx

The inflatable sphinx bobbed in the deep end of Sarah's pool like some ancient, forgotten god of summer. It was ridiculous—plastic gold headdress, painted-on enigmatic smile, wings that barely floated. But at Jacob's end-of-summer party, everything felt slightly mythological anyway.

Marcus stood at the pool's edge, clutching his phone like a lifeline. No signal. The ethernet cable snaking across the patio deck was the only reason anyone had WiFi at all, running from Sarah's house router to the outdoor setup like some digital umbilical cord.

"Yo, Marcus, you gonna swim or what?" Tyler called out, doing a cannonball that sent chlorinated water cascading over everyone within a ten-foot radius.

Tyler. The bull of sophomore year, loud and inevitable as a force of nature. Marcus had spent ninth grade trying to disappear around him, mastering the art of being forgettable. But this summer, something had shifted. Maybe it was the growth spurt that finally made him look his age. Maybe it was just getting tired of his own invisibility.

"Yeah," Marcus said, surprised by his own voice. "Just about to."

He waded in, the cool water shocking his skin. The sphinx floated near him, its painted smile somehow knowing.

"Dare you to ask it a riddle," said Brianna, floating by on a flamingo. She was the kind of pretty that made you forget your own name, and she was looking at him like he was actually worth talking to.

Marcus's heart did something complicated. "Okay. What's the riddle?"

"That's for you to figure out." Brianna grinned. "The sphinx doesn't give you the question. You have to give it the answer."

"That's bull," Tyler shouted from across the pool, but he was laughing, not mocking.

Marcus treaded water, looking at this ridiculous plastic creature. What was he supposed to say? What answer did any sixteen-year-old really have?

Then it hit him—the thing that had been sitting in his chest all summer, pressing against his ribs like something trying to be born.

"The answer is," Marcus said loudly enough for everyone to hear, "that we're all just pretending to know what we're doing. And that's actually okay."

For a second, silence. Then Brianna's face broke into a genuine smile. "Damn," she said. "The sphinx accepts."

Later, when he finally got WiFi working again, Marcus saw three new friend requests on his phone. Sometimes the most terrifying riddles were the ones you asked yourself, and sometimes the answers were simpler than you'd ever let yourself believe.