Riddle at the Retro Pool

Maya's iphone vibrated in her pocket—again. The group chat was blowing up about Jake's pool party, and her thumbs were literally sweating over the keyboard.

"You coming?" Kayla, her only actual friend, had texted three times.

Maya had been running from social stuff since seventh grade, when she'd choked on a chip while trying to laugh at someone's joke and everyone stared. Like, why was existing so complicated?

"Fine," she typed back, then immediately threw her phone on her bed like it burned.

The pool party was at Jake's house—his parents were loaded and had this whole Egyptian-themed backyard because his mom was obsessed with mythology or something. There was a literal sphinx statue near the deep end, staring with stone eyes that felt weirdly judgmental.

Maya spent the first hour hiding in the bathroom, scrolling through tiktoks and avoiding eye contact with everyone who was already swimming and having the time of their lives. Her makeup was waterproof but her confidence definitely wasn't.

"You're missing it," Kayla said, finding her and pulling her toward the pool. "Jake's dad set up this whole escape room thing in the gazebo. It's actually kinda cool."

The escape room was Egyptian-themed (shocker), and the final puzzle involved this animatronic sphinx that actually spoke. The whole group stood around it, dripping wet and laughing, as the sphinx asked in a booming voice:

"I have many faces but I'm always real. I'm stolen by some but earned by others. What am I?"

Everyone started shouting answers—"money!" "followers!" "clout!"—but the sphinx kept saying "incorrect."

Maya stared at the stone face, something clicking in her brain. She'd been running from this answer for years.

"Confidence," she said quietly.

The sphinx's eyes lit up green. "CORRECT."

The group went wild, Jake high-fiving her, and for the first time, Maya didn't want to disappear. She'd solved the riddle, but she'd also figured something else out—maybe she wasn't as awkward as she thought. Maybe confidence wasn't something you found, but something you earned by actually showing up.

Later, she found herself swimming laps with Kayla, both of them laughing at nothing in particular. Her iphone buzzed in the locker—probably the group chat going crazy about how Maya had saved the day.

For once, she didn't need to hide from it.