Riddle by the Pool

I felt like a total **spy** first week at Northwood High, navigating hallway politics like some undercover operation. Lean against locker—check. Scan cafeteria seating chart—check. Pretend to actually care about pre-calc—check, fail.

Then there was Marcus. Classic **bull** in the china shop of social hierarchy, loud and looming and somehow always in my personal space. He'd hip-check my locker door shut like it was some kind of greeting. "Watch it, new kid," he'd say, all teeth and no smile.

The only place I could breathe was the old pool behind the gym—drained, cracked concrete, probably full of tetanus but nobody went there. Except me. Until that Tuesday when I found HER.

She sat perched on the diving board like some kind of misunderstood creature, legs crossed, reading a book with pages yellow as old bones. Behind her, someone had spray-painted a **sphinx** on the pool wall—wings spread, riddle-smile frozen across its face.

"You're the spy," she said without looking up. "I've seen you watching me."

My face burned. "I—what?"

"Kidding. But you ARE always lurking." She finally looked at me, and something in my chest did this weird flip thing. "I'm Riley."

"Leo," I managed. "The, uh. The lurking guy."

She laughed, and it sounded like **water** rushing over stones—natural and effortless and completely foreign to the careful way I moved through everything. "You want to know what the sphinx means?"

I nodded, because suddenly I really, really did.

"My brother painted it before he graduated. It means: figure out your own riddles." She hopped off the board, landing light as a secret. "You're so busy playing spy, Leo, you forgot to just... exist."

Marcus appeared then, kicking the pool gate open. "Yo, new kid, coach wants—"

"He's busy," Riley said, and Marcus actually stopped. Like, full-on froze.

"Whatever." But he backed away.

I looked at her—really looked—and for the first time since moving here, I wasn't calculating angles or exit strategies. Just standing there, feeling real.

"So," Riley said, picking up her book. "Wanna help me figure out this riddle or what?"

And yeah. Yeah, I really did.