Sphinx on the Court

The fluorescent lights of the padel court hummed against the summer evening as Mia adjusted her grip on the racquet. Three weeks into summer camp, and she still couldn't believe her parents had signed her up for "social sports camp" instead of letting her rot in her room like a normal fourteen-year-old.

"Your form's getting better, Sphinx," Alex called from across the net. He'd started calling her that on day two when she'd spent twenty minutes staring at the strategy board without speaking, like some kind of mysterious statue. The nickname had stuck, much to her mortification.

Mia felt her iphone buzz in her pocket against the bench. Probably her group chat blowing up about some drama she was missing. Being away from her phone for two-hour practices was basically medieval torture.

"Focus, Sphinx," Alex laughed, tossing her an orange slice from his water bottle. "Sugar rush. You're playing like you're half-asleep."

Their fingers brushed during the handoff. Mia's stomach did that annoying fluttery thing it had been doing since week one. Alex was exactly the kind of boy her friends would lose their minds over—messy dark hair, braces that were kind of endearing, and the ability to make anything feel like a joke.

Then came dinner in the cafeteria. That's when disaster struck.

Mia finished her meal, feeling victorious about actually making it through an entire conversation with Alex without saying something awkward. They were walking back to the dorms when Erin, a girl from the tennis group, gave her a weird look.

"You have a little..." Erin gestured to her own teeth.

Mia sprinted to the bathroom mirror. There, nestled conspicuously in her front teeth like a neon sign announcing her social death: a giant piece of spinach from the salad bar. She'd been talking to Alex for forty minutes. Forty. Minutes.

"Kill me now," she groaned to her reflection.

Her iphone lit up with a text from Alex: "You looked really intense studying that strategy board today. It's cool that you take stuff seriously. Most people here are just messing around."

Then another: "Also, you looked great in that orange shirt at practice. Not that I was looking or whatever lol"

Mia stared at her phone, spinach crisis temporarily forgotten. The sphinx hadn't been mysterious because she was cool. She'd been mysterious because she was terrified of saying something stupid in front of the only person who made her hands sweat through her grip.

Somehow, without even trying, she'd managed to intrigue him anyway.

She typed back: "Next time I'll actually try to hit the ball instead of staring at the strategy board like it's an ancient riddle."

His reply came instantly: "Deal. But you're still my favorite Sphinx."

Mia caught her smile in the mirror—spinach-free, thank you very much—and walked back to her dorm feeling lighter than she had all summer. Maybe padel camp wasn't so bad after all.