Poolside Sphinx

I was operating on full zombie mode—three hours of sleep thanks to AP Euro crash studying—but Maya practically dragged me to Tyler's pool party anyway.

"You need this," she insisted, shoving me toward the backyard where half our sophomore class was already cannonballing into the crystal-blue water.

I hovered near the snack table, clutching a paper plate with what I thought was a surprisingly decent spinach dip until I realized I'd been double-dipping for five solid minutes. Tyler's mom appeared beside me with a knowing smile.

"First time?" She winked. "Everyone feels awkward at these things. Even Tyler looked like a deer in headlights at your birthday last year."

My face burned. She remembered my embarrassing backyard goldfish pond disaster where I'd fallen in fully clothed while trying to rescue a fish?

Then I saw him. Riley. The sphinx of our grade—mysterious, barely spoke, but somehow knew everything. He was sitting poolside, reading a paperback like this was a library instead of a party.

Before I could overthink it, I marched over.

"What's with the book?"

He looked up, and his eyes were this ridiculous shade of hazel that made my stomach do gymnastics. "Avoiding the water."

"Me too," I admitted. "I sink like a stone."

Riley actually smiled—like, full-on genuine, and it transformed his whole face. "Wanna be tragic land-mermaids together?"

"Yes," I said immediately, and we spent the rest of the party making fun of people's cannonball form and talking about everything from our mutual hatred of gym class to how we both secretly loved mythology. His laugh was this quiet, surprised sound, like he didn't do it often enough.

When Maya finally dragged me home at sunset, I was still a zombie, but the good kind. The kind with a phone full of new texts and the memory of someone looking at me like I was actually worth knowing.

Sometimes the best things happen when you're too tired to overthink them.