Poolside Sphinx

Maya stood at the edge of the pool, clutching her papaya smoothie like it was a lifeline. Which, honestly, it kind of was. This was Jake's end-of-summer bash, and everyone who was anyone was here. Everyone except her usual crew, who'd bailed last minute because apparently their lives depended on watching some baseball game that wasn't even being streamed.

She'd been crushing on Jake since seventh grade, and somehow he'd grown six feet and developed actual muscles over one summer. Now he was like this whole new person—confident, popular, always surrounded by friends. He'd become a total sphinx lately, all mysterious smiles and inside jokes she wasn't part of.

The weight of her crush felt like a physical bear sitting on her chest, heavy and suffocating. She'd practiced what to say to him approximately five thousand times in front of her mirror, but now that she was actually here? Her brain was blank.

"Hey, Maya!" Jake materialized beside her, dripping pool water. "You gonna swim or what?"

She almost dropped her smoothie. "Uh. Maybe. Later."

"You sure?" His eyes crinkled. "You've been nursing that papaya situation for like an hour."

Maybe it was the way he said papaya. Maybe it was the fact that he'd actually noticed her. But suddenly, the sphinx's riddle wasn't so mysterious anymore.

"I was waiting for you to ask me," she heard herself say.

Jake blinked. Then he grinned—really grinned, not his popular-kid smile. "Oh. Oh, damn. Okay. I see you."

The bear on her chest lifted. The sphinx had revealed itself. And somewhere in the distance, that baseball game faded to background noise.

"So," Jake said, gesturing to the pool. "You coming in or what?"

Maya set down her smoothie. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm coming."