Riddles at the Deep End

Maya pulled her bucket **hat** lower, praying the brim would hide the fact that she was visibly trembling. The sophomore pool party loomed before her like a social minefield, and she was seriously considering bailing.

"You coming in or what?" Jenna called from the water, doing a backflip that sent droplets flying everywhere. Jenna, who moved through social situations like a shark through water — effortless, predatory, somehow always at the center of everything.

Maya adjusted her hat. "Maybe in a bit."

She ended up perched on the edge of the **pool**, legs submerged to the knees, nursing a lukewarm soda and feeling spectacularly uncool. That's when she noticed Tyler — junior class president, track star, and Maya's crush since approximately forever — sitting alone on a lounge chair, furiously typing on his phone.

Old Maya would've done nothing. New Maya, fortified by three stolen sips of someone's abandoned hard seltzer, decided to accidentally walk past him and coincidentally sit nearby. Like a completely normal human being who definitely wasn't low-key **spy**-ing on the boy she'd been silently obsessing over for months.

"Cool party," she said, sliding onto the adjacent chair like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Tyler looked up, eyes wide and panicked. "You think so? Because I'm currently having a full existential crisis."

Maya blinked. "Wait, what?"

He groaned, setting down his phone. "Lena's playing emotional **sphinx** again. Texted me 'we need to talk' and then went radio silent for three hours. What does that even mean? I'm literally vibrating out of my skin."

"Oh damn." Maya forgot about being cool. "That's, like, straight-up psychological warfare."

"RIGHT?" Tyler buried his face in his hands. "I hate the guessing game. Just tell me what's wrong so I can fix it or move on or whatever."

Maya considered telling him that yes, Lena was probably mad about him liking her Instagram posts but never actually talking to her, or that maybe she just wanted attention, or that honestly the whole situationship was messy and he deserved clarity. Instead she said, "Want to play Chicken?"

"What?"

"Chicken. In the pool. Jenna needs a partner and I guarantee you, physical combat is way better than sitting here overthinking a text." She stood up, holding out her hand. "Also, you're literally dripping sweat. It's gross."

Tyler stared at her for a second, then actually laughed — a real sound, not his usual polite chuckle. "You're right. Screw it. Let's do it."

They spent the next hour getting absolutely destroyed at Chicken, Maya's hat somewhere on the patio, her phone abandoned, her anxiety nowhere to be found. Later, she'd check her texts and find Lena had finally replied: "sorry, fell asleep watching netflix lol."

But in that moment, splashing in the deep end with Tyler and absolutely winning at nothing, Maya realized something important: sometimes you just had to jump in anyway.