Riddles at the Deep End

Marcus stood at the edge of the pool, chlorine stinging his nose. The annual July 4th block party. Everyone was already in the water, laughing and splashing, while he still had his shirt on. Classic him.

"Yo Marcus! You gonna stand there like a sphinx all day or actually swim?" Tyler called out. Of course Tyler would say that. Tyler, the varsity baseball star who somehow made everything look effortless.

Marcus forced a laugh. "Just warming up."

His pocket buzzed. A text from Chloe: *r u coming?*

Chloe. The reason he'd even shown up. The reason he'd spent the morning picking out his swim trunks and choking down a vitamin D supplement because someone on TikTok said it helped with anxiety. (It didn't.)

He jumped in.

The water swallowed him, cool and sudden. When he surfaced, Chloe was right there.

"There you are," she said. "Tyler was making sphinx jokes again, wasn't he?"

Marcus shrugged. "How did you know?"

"He makes the same three jokes. Baseball, sphinx, and that one about his eyebrow. It's his whole personality." She splashed him. "You should try out for the team, by the way. I heard you hitting at the cage last week."

His face burned, thank god for the water. "You heard that?"

"I hear lots of things." She treaded water backward, smiling. "Like how you've been practicing every morning because you're finally gonna go for it this year."

Marcus stared. "I—what?"

"Marcus." Chloe rolled her eyes, but fondly. "Everyone knows you're secretly good at baseball. You're just scared to actually try."

Something shifted. Maybe it was the vitamin D kicking in (it wasn't). Maybe it was the way the sun hit her wet hair. Maybe he was just tired of standing on the edge looking at everyone else living.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I guess I am."

"So?" She tipped her head toward the lawn where Tyler and some guys were setting up for whiffle ball. "You gonna tell me about your feelings, or you gonna come show us what you got?"

Marcus pulled himself out of the pool, water streaming down his chest, and for the first time all summer, he wasn't thinking about how he looked. He was thinking about his swing.

"Watch this," he said.