The Boy Who Wouldn't Surface

Maya's palms were sweating so hard she could practically fill the pool with them. Which was ironic, because she was currently standing at the edge of said pool, clutching her towel like it was a life raft, while everyone else from sophomore year splashed around like they'd been born with gills.

"You coming in or what?" Tyler yelled, doing a cannonball that displaced half the water onto the concrete.

"In a minute!" Maya called back, lying through her teeth. The truth was, she'd just spent three hours straightening her hair into submission, and one encounter with chlorine would turn it back into the frizz monster she'd been battling since seventh grade. Some girls looked like mermaids when they swam. Maya looked like a poodle that had been through a car wash.

Then she saw him — the sphinx of the shallow end. Lucas. The quiet new guy who'd transferred in three weeks ago and still hadn't said more than two sentences to anyone. He sat on the pool steps, fully clothed, watching everyone with these dark, unreadable eyes. Like he knew something nobody else did.

Before Maya could overthink it, she found herself walking over to him.

"Not swimming?" she asked, sitting on the edge beside him.

Lucas shrugged. "Don't like people seeing me with my shirt off."

"Oh." Maya felt her face heat up. "Sorry, I didn't mean to —"

"It's fine." He looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time. "Your hair looks nice."

Maya laughed. "You're terrible at lying."

"I'm not lying." Lucas smiled — a real one, barely there but genuine. "I like the frizz. It's... honest."

"Honest?" Maya repeated. "That's what we're calling it now?"

"Yeah. Everyone else at this party is pretending to be someone they're not." He gestured at Tyler, currently holding court with the popular crowd. "Tyler's acting like he didn't cry in the bathroom after failing that chem test last week. Like he's got it all figured out. But I heard him. That's bull, and we both know it."

Maya stared at him. "You heard him crying?"

"I hear a lot of things." Lucas stood up, water dripping from his rolled-up jeans. "People think I'm stuck up or whatever. But really, I'm just listening."

He held out a hand.

"Come swimming with me. I promise not to splash your honest hair."

Maya looked at his hand, then at the pool, then back at the crowd pretending to be perfect. She took his hand, stepped into the water, and for the first time all summer, she didn't worry about her hair or whether she looked like a fool. She just dove in.

The sphinx had riddled her, but the answer wasn't what she expected. Some people actually meant what they said. And apparently, honesty was worth getting wet for.