Sphinx, Hat, Gone

The school sphinx loomed over me like a judgmental Egyptian mom as I stood frozen in the cafeteria. I'd just taken the biggest bite of spinach salad in history—like, genuinely concerning amounts of spinach—when I saw him. Jake. The Jake who'd been my lab partner since September and somehow still hadn't noticed I existed beyond "pass the beaker."

And now I had spinach. In my teeth. Definitely visible. Absolutely catastrophic.

"Hey Maya," he said, walking over with that easy grin that made my stomach do things I didn't want to analyze in public. "You coming to Jordan's pool party tonight?"

I panicked. The spinach was still there. I could feel it, mocking me. "Yeah! Totally!" I squeaked, then immediately regretted everything. I couldn't swim. Not really. I'd been avoiding it since fifth grade when I'd nearly drowned at the YMCA pool during a "swimming" unit that still haunted my dreams.

"Cool." Jake grinned. "Everyone's gonna be there."

Fast forward to eight PM, and I was standing outside Jordan's house wearing my trusty beanie—indoors. At a pool party. Like a complete psycho. My hair had rebelled against humidity, and the hat was my last line of defense against looking like a electrocuted poodle.

The sphinx statue in Jordan's eerily rich-people garden watched as I crept toward the pool party like a fugitive. I could hear laughter, splashing, the low bass of some depressing SoundCloud rap. This was fine. Everything was fine.

"Mayya! Finally!" Jordan's girlfriend Lindsay grabbed my arm. "We're playing chicken fights! You're with Jake!"

Before I could process this information, I was being shoved toward the pool. Jake was already waist-deep in the water, grinning like he didn't realize his life was about to end. My life was about to end. Specifically, my social life.

"You good?" Jake asked as I stood at the edge, fully clothed, hat somehow still surviving.

"Great!" I lied. "Just... warming up!"

Then someone—I'm pretty sure it was Lindsay—decided this was the perfect moment for a physics experiment. They shoved me.

I went under. The water swallowed me, cold and chlorinated and terrible. But then Jake's hands were on my waist, lifting me up like it was nothing, and I broke the surface gasping, hat somehow still clinging to my head like a desperate barnacle.

"You good?" he laughed, and I couldn't tell if he was laughing at me or with me but honestly, at that point, did it matter?

"I don't actually know how to swim," I admitted, spitting water like a fountain.

Jake's face softened in a way that made something in my chest do that stupid flutter thing again. "That's chill. I can teach you."

I looked up at the sphinx statue, which seemed significantly less judgmental now. Or maybe that was just the lack of oxygen to my brain. Either way, I figured maybe—just maybe—this high school thing wouldn't be completely terrible.

Even with spinach in my teeth and a ridiculous hat and the fact that I was currently clinging to a boy like a koala in a pool I'd mentally sworn never to enter again.

Yeah. Maybe not terrible at all.