The Sphinx at Sarah's Party

The pool party was already mid when I showed up, fashionably late because I'd spent forty-five minutes staring at my reflection, trying to decide whether my hair looked more 'effortlessly cool' or 'I just rolled out of bed.' Spoiler: it was definitely the second one.

The backyard was already packed with people from school, most of whom I'd been avoiding since freshman year. Tyler's crew had claimed the deep end, of course, because that's just how they operated. Tyler was on the diving platform, shirtless, doing his best impression of a WWE wrestler, splashing **water** everywhere like he owned the entire municipal supply.

"Yo, Martinez!" Tyler yelled, spotting me hovering near the snack table like a lost cosplayer at a comic convention. "Get in here! The **water**'s sick!"

I mumbled something about having to eat first and reached for a bag of chips, but Jenna intercepted me with a gentle hand on my arm. She was my oldest **friend**, the one person who knew I couldn't actually swim and had been helping me avoid pool parties since sixth grade.

"New plan," she whispered, dragging me toward the garage. "We're doing sphinx poses for Instagram instead."

The garage had been transformed into this weird Egyptian-themed lounge area—Sarah's mom was apparently really into theme parties—and there was this massive golden sphinx statue propped against the back wall, looking simultaneously majestic and completely ridiculous.

"Okay, but be real," Jenna said, arranging herself next to the statue and holding up her phone. "This is the most extra thing you've ever seen, right?"

"That's **bull** and you know it," I shot back, finally cracking a smile. "Remember when we tried to throw you a surprise party and your mom made us do a whole Harry Potter theme?"

She cracked up, and I snapped a photo just as she was mid-laugh, hair everywhere, the golden sphinx looming behind her like some ancient Instagram filter.

"Wait," I said, staring at the picture. "The sphinx is literally perfect for this."

"How?" Jenna asked, grabbing a handful of pretzels.

"Because we're all just trying to solve riddles nobody gave us the answers to." I gestured toward the party outside. "Like why Tyler thinks splashing people makes him cool, or why we're all pretending to have fun when we're actually just awkward teenagers trying to survive high school without completely embarrassing ourselves."

Jenna considered this, then bumped my shoulder with hers. "You know what? You're actually deep when you stop overthinking everything."

"Don't get used to it," I said, but I was smiling now, really smiling, because somehow between the sphinx statue and the terrible music and Jenna pretending to interview it like a talk show host, I'd forgotten to be nervous.

"Hey," Jenna said suddenly. "You never answered my question earlier."

"What question?"

"About whether you're gonna finally tell Jordan how you feel. The sphinx demands an answer." She gestured dramatically at the golden statue.

I looked out through the garage door, where Jordan was sitting on the pool edge, feet in the water, laughing at something someone had said. My heart did that stupid fluttery thing it always did when I looked at them.

"Maybe," I said. "But first, I need more chips. And possibly to practice sphinx poses for another hour."

Jenna groaned but was already positioning herself next to the statue again. "Fine. But the sphinx is watching your back, Martinez. Don't make me wait forever."