Riddles at the Deep End

Maya's cat Luna wound around her ankles like a fuzzy lifeline as she stood before the full-length mirror, adjusting her swimsuit for the third time. The pool party at Jake's house was in two hours, and her stomach was doing that familiar knot thing it always did before social events.

"You got this, Luna," Maya muttered, though she wasn't sure who she was trying to convince. Her phone buzzed. Group chat blowing up about who was bringing what. Jake's annual summer party was legendary — the pool, the music, the way everyone pretended not to be checking each other out across the water.

But this year felt different. This year, *he* would be there.

Noah. The sphinx of the sophomore class. Mysterious, unreadable, and unfairly cute. Maya had been lowkey obsessed with him since September, when he'd helped her pick up her dropped books in the hallway without saying a word. Just that half-smile that made her brain short-circuit.

The cable guy showed up twenty minutes before she had to leave, because of course. Maya watched through the window as he fiddled with the connection box, her anxiety spiking. What if her phone died? What if she couldn't distract-scroll during awkward moments? What if she accidentally made eye contact with Noah and her face did that thing where it forgot how to human?

"All set," the cable guy called, and Maya practically sprinted out the door.

The pool scene was chaos in the best way. Bodies splashing, music bumping, someone's little brother crying because he dropped his popsicle. Maya hovered near the snack table, nursing a soda and mentally composing text messages she'd never send.

And there he was. Noah, sitting alone on a lounge chair, scrolling through his phone like he was immune to the social energy crackling around them.

Maya's phone buzzed. Group chat: "someone talk to Noah he's been sitting alone forever 😭"

Her heart hammered. This was it. The moment. She smoothed her swimsuit, grabbed a handful of chips for prop purposes, and marched over.

"Hey."

Noah looked up. And smiled. Not the half-smile from the hallway — a real one.

"Hey. You're Maya, right? From English?"

They talked for forty minutes about nothing and everything — about their weird English teacher, about how pool parties were secretly exhausting, about how he'd once gotten his cat stuck in a tree and had to call the fire department. The sphinx had riddles, but turns out? He just wanted someone to ask.

Later, floating in the pool with Luna waiting back home and her phone safely charged, Maya thought maybe she could do this whole social thing after all.