Riddles at the Deep End

Maya's mom thrust the bottle at her before she left. "Take your **vitamin** D, baby. You're pale as a ghost."

Now Maya stood at the edge of the community pool, clutching her orange **orange** soda like a life preserver, watching Tyler laugh with his friends by the diving board. Tyler, who'd sat behind her in bio freshman year. Tyler, who definitely didn't know she existed.

"You gonna stand there all day looking like a human question mark?"

Maya jumped. It was Jazz—real name Jasmine, camp counselor three years running, wearing an oversized tie-dye shirt and zero sunscreen. "You're doing that **sphinx** thing again."

"Sphinx thing?"

"All mysterious and guarded. Like you're holding all the answers but won't tell anyone the riddle." Jazz cracked her gum. "Life's short, Maya. The water's fine."

"I'm not great at swimming," Maya admitted.

"So what? Neither is half this crew. We're all just splashing around pretending we know what we're doing."

Jazz wasn't wrong. Maya looked around: kids posturing with their towels, Instagramming their snacks, performing coolness like it was a job. The pool reflected the sky—**swimming** with light, deceptively calm.

She'd spent so long being the quiet girl, the one who blended into lockers. But something about Jazz's confidence, the way she owned her weirdness, made Maya want to try.

"Just jump?" Maya asked.

" cannonball. Make a scene. Trust me, nobody's watching as hard as you think they are."

Maya set down her orange soda. Took a breath. Let herself fall.

The **water** swallowed her whole—cold, shocking, alive. She surfaced sputtering, hair plastered to her face, while Tyler and his friends definitely didn't notice.

But Jazz did, grinning from the edge. And somehow, that was enough.

Maybe the sphinx didn't have all the answers. Maybe she was just figuring them out too.