Riddles by the Pool

Maya felt like a straight-up zombie. Junior year was absolutely cooking her brain — AP Bio, student council, debate team, and now her parents were making her attend this 'networking' padel clinic because apparently 'connections are everything.' As if.

She dragged herself to the country club, Dunkin in hand, feeling like death warmed up. The padel courts looked impossibly blue against the灰 sky. Coach Trev was hyping everyone up with way too much energy for 9 AM on a Saturday.

'Alright squad, pair up! We're doing mixed doubles today!' Coach Trev announced like this was the Olympics.

Maya ended up with Liam, the quiet kid from her AP Calc class. He was cute in that way where you don't really notice it until you're stuck on a paddle court with him and his curls are all messy from sleep deprivation and he's wearing this vintage band tee that's slightly too small.

They were terrible. Like, actually tragic. But they were both laughing so hard at their own incompetence that it didn't even matter. At one point, Maya hit the ball so spectacularly wrong that it sailed over the fence and straight toward the old sphinx statue that some former club member had donated in 1998 and never removed.

'The sphinx is judging us,' Liam said, deadpan.

'The sphinx wishes it had our game,' Maya shot back, and then they both lost it.

After practice, everyone migrated to the pool area. Some people cannonballed, but Maya just slipped into the water slowly, letting it wash away the zombie fog she'd been walking around in for weeks. Swimming felt like hitting a reset button on her entire nervous system.

Liam's golden retriever, Buster, was lounging poolside in that way dogs do where they look ridiculously comfortable. The dog kept making these concerned faces at Maya every time she surfaced, like 'are you okay in there, human?'

'He thinks you're drowning,' Liam said, sitting on the edge with his feet in the water.

'Tell him I'm just communicating with mermaids,' Maya said. 'He wouldn't understand. He's a land creature.'

Liam smiled. 'You know what the sphinx would say?'

'What?'

'That the answer to the riddle is that sometimes you need to be terrible at padel with someone to figure out you actually like hanging out with them.'

Maya floated on her back, staring up at the sky, and for the first time in months, her brain wasn't running through a mental checklist of everything she needed to do. Sometimes the best networking happens when you're not even trying. Sometimes you find your people when you're both operating on three hours of sleep and questionable athletic ability.

The zombie feeling faded. Maybe junior year wouldn't actually kill her after all.