Riddles at the Deep End

The chlorine hit Maya's nose before she even stepped onto the concrete. Another Saturday, another pool party at Jessica's house. Maya adjusted her bikini strap, then reached for her **iPhone** like it was a lifeline. Twelve notifications. Three people had already posted stories from the party.

"Maya! You coming in or what?" Tyler shouted, doing a cannonball that sent water everywhere.

"Yeah, just...," she mumbled, thumb hovering over her screen. The riddle notification blinked at her: *What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?*

Her anthropology teacher had spent all week talking about the **Sphinx** and its ancient riddles. Something about how the answer was "man" — crawling as a baby, walking as an adult, using a cane in old age. Maya had rolled her eyes at the time, but now it stuck in her head.

The real riddle wasn't some stone statue's question. It was this: Why was she standing at the edge of the **pool**, watching everyone else live while she documented their lives from the sidelines?

"Hey."

Maya jumped. It was Aisha, the new girl from her English class. Dripping wet, grinning like she'd just discovered a secret.

"You're missing it," Aisha said. "Water's perfect. Also, your phone's waterproof, right?"

"What?"

"Your phone. Bring it in. Or don't. But you're literally fifteen years old and acting like you're watching life through a glass wall." Aisha's eyes crinkled. "Weird metaphor, but you get what I mean."

Maya looked at her iPhone. The screen reflected her own face back at her — uncertain, on the edge of something.

Then she looked at the pool. At Tyler surfacing like a dolphin, at Jessica and Kayla racing to the other end, at all the moments she'd been capturing instead of living.

The Sphinx's riddle echoed in her mind: *What changes throughout life but stays the same?*

Maybe the answer wasn't man. Maybe it was this: we all start scared to jump in, and the whole point was figuring out when to stop standing at the edge.

Maya locked her screen. She dove into the water, phone still clutched in her hand, and finally understood what the ancient riddle had really been trying to say all along.

Some answers aren't found on screens. They're found in the deep end.