The Riddle of Lane 4

I was in full zombie mode—3 AM insomnia scrolling will do that to you. My mom's voice echoed from the kitchen: "Did you take your vitamin D gummy? You're pale as a sheet."

"Yes, Mom," I lied, grabbing the bottle and dry-swallowing two. Anything to escape to the community pool where *she* might be.

The girl by the diving boards. The one I'd been thinking about all summer while my brain refused to shut down. She sat alone on the edge of Lane 4, legs dangling in the water, reading a battered paperback with a sphinx on the cover. She had this look—unchanging, unreadable, like she knew secrets about everyone at the pool and wasn't telling.

I'd nicknamed her the Sphinx in my head. Riddle: Why does the prettiest girl always sit by herself? Answer: Because she's not actually pretty, she's terrifying. Or maybe I'm just a coward.

"Marcus! Stop staring and get in the water!" My little sister's voice cut through my thoughts. Great. Now the Sphinx had definitely noticed me standing there like a creeper.

I started swimming laps just to look busy, doing my best impression of someone who wasn't hyperaware of her every move. Back and forth, back and forth, until my arms burned and I'd successfully avoided eye contact for forty-seven minutes. Victory.

Until I pulled myself out of the pool, dripping wet, and found her standing right there. The Sphinx. Up close, she had freckles across her nose and the sphinx book tucked under her arm.

"You've been swimming for an hour," she said. Her voice was quieter than I expected. "You okay?"

"Fine," I squeaked. Brilliant.

She held out a bottle—orange gummy vitamins. "My mom's the same way. Vitamin deficiency emergency." She smiled, just a little. "I'm Leo, by the way. Short for Cleopatra."

The riddle solved itself. The Sphinx wasn't mysterious. She was just a girl whose mom also worried about vitamin deficiencies. A girl who sat alone because she liked reading by the pool, same reason I swam laps alone.

"Marcus," I said, finally finding my voice. "Want to race?"

Leo grinned. "You're going down, zombie boy."

Maybe tomorrow I'd actually sleep. Probably not. But at least I wouldn't be swimming alone anymore.