Riddles By The Pool

Maya stood by the **water**, clutching her red solo cup like a lifeline. The graduation pool party. Everyone was here. Everyone except her, apparently.

"Yo, you gonna actually get in or just guard the edge like a **sphinx** all night?"

Fox.aka Felicity, the girl who'd made Maya's junior year a living hell with her perfectly curated Instagram and somehow-even-more-perfect real life. Fox tilted her head, eyes glinting with that particular brand of mean-girl curiosity that made Maya's stomach do backflips.

"I'm good," Maya managed, which was absolutely not true. She was terrible at this—small talk, parties, existing near people who seemed to have everything figured out while she was still stuck on level one of Being A Normal Teenager.

"Try this." Fox thrust a weird-looking fruit slice at her. "**Papaya**. Imported. My mom's obsessed with being ~exotic~."

Maya stared at it. "What's it taste like?"

"That's the riddle, isn't it?" Fox's grin softened, just a fraction. "You won't know until you try."

Something shifted. Maybe it was the humidity, maybe it was realizing they'd survived the same four years of high school hell together. Maya took a bite.

Sweet. Weirdly musky. Nothing like she expected.

"It's... different," she said honestly.

"Yeah." Fox's voice dropped. "Like everything next year, right?"

College. Different cities. The great unspooling.

Maya looked at the **water** again, people cannonballing and screaming, glittering under pool lights. She took off her cover-up.

"Race you to the other side?"

Fox's eyebrows shot up. "You're challenging ME?"

"Unless you're scared."

"Oh, you are ON."

They hit the **water** at the same time, surfacing gasping, papaya sweetness on their tongues, laughter bubbling up like something neither of them knew they still had in them. Some riddles, Maya realized, you solve together.