Riddles by the Pool Edge

Maya pressed her face against the chain-link fence, watching the popular kids dominate the swim lanes like they owned the water. Again. She'd been doing this all week—standing there in her cutoffs and oversized band tee, feeling like a total creep.

"You're basically a professional stalker now," her best friend Priya had texted earlier. "Lowkey concerning vibes."

Maya hadn't denied it. She *was* spying. But it wasn't like she wanted to invite herself into their world. She just needed to figure out how they made everything look so effortless—the laughter that didn't seem forced, the easy confidence, the way they moved through the hallway like gravity bent around them.

Then she saw Liam climb out of the pool, water dripping from his hair like something out of a movie. He waved at someone across the deck and Maya felt that familiar twist in her chest—that weird hollow feeling of being on the outside of a joke everyone else got.

That's when she noticed the freshman sitting alone on the bench, book open on her lap. The cover showed a golden **sphinx** against a starry sky. Riddles and mysteries. Maya knew that book—she'd read it three times in middle school, back when she still believed life had hidden meanings you could decode if you tried hard enough.

The girl looked up, caught Maya staring through the fence.

Maya almost bolted. But then the freshman smiled—that tiny, knowing smile—and Maya found herself walking through the gate anyway.

"You're Maya, right?" The girl closed her book. "I'm Sam. I've seen you watching them."

"Creeper status achieved," Maya muttered, cheeks burning.

"No." Sam shook her head. "You're trying to figure out the riddle. How they do it. How to be... that."

"And you know?"

Sam's smile widened. "The sphinx asks better questions than it answers. Want to come **swimming** with me instead? The water's actually pretty nice once you stop watching everyone else."