Riddles by the Palm Pool

Maya's iphone vibrated against the lounge chair, lit up with another Instagram notification. She ignored it. Some things were more important than checking whether Kayla had posted another "perfect summer" collage.

"You're not actually gonna do it," said Tessa from the pool edge, dripping wet.

"Watch me."

Maya stood at the deep end of Sunset Terrace's pool, the massive artificial palm tree casting weird shadows across the water. The entire swim team was watching. This was it — the moment she'd been building toward all summer, since freshman year when everyone started treating her like the fragile baby who needed floaties.

The sphinx moth had been bugging her all week. Every night it tapped against her window screen, its wings fuzzy like something that shouldn't exist in suburbia. Her nana said sphinx moths were messengers. Messengers of what, she didn't know.

The pool surface rippled. Deep end. No walls. Just blue and more blue.

"Maya, seriously," called Leo from the other side. He'd been swimming competitively since third grade, back when Maya was still afraid to put her face under. "You don't have to prove anything."

But she did.

She thought about all the practices she'd sat out. The way her voice shook when she had to present in class. The fear that everyone would always see her as the girl who needed saving.

She stepped to the edge. The palm leaves whispered above her.

The sphinx moth had been brave enough to throw itself against her window night after night. What was Maya's excuse?

She jumped.

The water swallowed her whole. No sides. No shallow end to grab. Just her and the dark and the silence. Something shifted inside her chest — a lock turning.

When she broke the surface, gasping, everyone was cheering. Even Leo. Even Kayla, who had definitely filmed it.

But Maya didn't care. She treaded water in the deep end, finally weightless.

Later that night, the sphinx moth returned. This time Maya opened the window and let it in.

"Thanks," she whispered as it landed on her palm, fuzzy wings drying in the moonlight.

Her phone buzzed somewhere. Someone had tagged her. She didn't check.