Riddles by the Pool Edge

The community pool hummed with summer noise—splashes, laughter, and the distant thud of volleyball hitting sand. Seventeen-year-old Maya leaned against the concession stand, nursing a lukewarm soda and feeling like she'd been deposited on the wrong planet. Again.

"You're doing it wrong," said a voice behind her.

Maya turned. It was Phoenix, the girl with the knowing eyes who'd graduated last year but still hung around the pool like she owned it. People called her "the Sphinx" because she'd appear out of nowhere, drop cryptic comments, and vanish before you could process what she'd said.

"Doing what wrong?" Maya asked, suddenly self-conscious.

"Existing like you're waiting for permission." Phoenix's gaze drifted to the fountain across the pool, where two orange goldfish navigated the artificial current, endlessly looping. "They never wait. They just swim."

Maya scoffed. "They're fish. They don't have overthinking brains."

"Neither do half the people here." Phoenix stepped closer, her expression unreadable. "Here's your riddle: What costs nothing but everyone's afraid to spend it?"

"Money?" Maya tried weakly.

Phoenix's lip curled. "Obviousness."

"I don't know. Attention. Time. Actual courage."

"Close." Phoenix tilted her head. "It's being wrong. Being awkward. Being the person who dives when everyone else dips their toes."

She gestured toward the pool, where Maya's crush, Jamie, was doing cannonballs with his friends. They looked so effortless, so comfortable in their skin. Meanwhile, Maya spent every social interaction mentally rehearsing escape routes.

"The goldfish don't care if they look stupid swimming in circles," Phoenix continued. "They just keep going until something better comes along."

"What if nothing better comes?"

"Then you become the something better for someone else." Phoenix started walking away, then paused. "Your move, riddle girl. But make it before summer ends."

Maya watched her go, then looked at the goldfish, still circling their tiny universe. She looked at Jamie, surfaces gleaming in the sun. She looked at her own reflection in her soda can.

Then she set down the drink, walked to the pool's edge, and did the most awkward cannonball in history. It was terrible. It was magnificent.

And when she surfaced, sputtering and grinning like an idiot, Jamie laughed and said, "Finally! Where have you been hiding?"

Maya didn't answer. She was too busy deciding that sometimes, the Sphinx was right: the only way to stop circling was to jump.