Riddles at the Net

I was running late—again—to the padel courts at Oakwood Country Club, my brand-new racket slippery with sweat. Mom had dropped fifty bucks on it, convinced that if I just found a summer sport, I'd magically transform from socially invisible to socially viable.

The papaya incident at brunch hadn't helped. Three hours earlier, I'd taken a bite of the exotic fruit chunks Mom insisted were 'sophisticated,' only to have the guidance counselor's daughter point at my teeth and whisper, 'You have something green.' Spoiler: it wasn't papaya.

It was the spinach from the omelette station.

'That's gonna haunt you,' someone said behind me.

I turned to see him: the Sphinx.

That's what everyone called Leo. Seventeen, impossibly tall, eyes that seemed to know something you didn't. He barely spoke, but when he did, people listened. He'd been sitting at a corner table, alone, watching everything.

'Thanks,' I muttered, wiping my mouth. 'Thanks for the heads-up. Earlier. When it mattered.'

Leo shrugged. 'You seemed busy.'

Now here I was, three hours late to my first padel lesson, flustered and still feeling the phantom spinach between my teeth. And there was Leo again, on the court opposite me, racket loose in his hand like he'd been born holding it.

'You're the new girl,' he said.

'I'm—I'm trying to be.'

He tossed me a ball. 'Show me what you've got.'

I took a deep breath and hit it. It sailed wide, embarrassing and honest.

Leo didn't laugh. He just walked to the net, leaned against it, and said the most words I'd ever heard him speak.

'You know what a sphinx is?' he asked suddenly.

'A riddle?' I guessed.

'A guardian,' he corrected. 'Someone who watches and waits. But here's the thing about riddles—they have answers. You just have to stop running from them.'

He looked at my racket, then at me.

'The spinach thing,' he said. 'Nobody noticed. You think they did, but they didn't. Everyone's too busy worrying about themselves to notice you.'

Something loosened in my chest.

'You're just saying that.'

'Am I?' He tossed another ball my way. 'Your shot.'

This time, I didn't think about the spinach, or the papaya, or the fact that I was the new girl who didn't belong. I just hit the ball.

It went in.

Leo smiled—rare, like discovering an extra scoop of ice cream you didn't order.

'Not bad,' he said. 'Not bad at all.'