The Sphinx at the Pool

The summer before sophomore year, I somehow got stuck as the assistant coach for my little brother's baseball team. The seven-year-olds ran around like chaotic atoms, bouncing off each other while I tried to teach them the fundamentals of catching a ball without crying.

"You throw like a confused flamingo," called out Jake, who lived next door and had been my middle school tormentor until he mysteriously became sort of hot over the summer. He leaned against the chain-link fence, all baseball cap and confidence, while my face burned.

"Better than you bat," I shot back, which wasn't even true, and we both knew it. But something had shifted—my voice didn't crack.

After practice, I'd retreat to my bedroom and stare at my goldfish, Clementine, who lived in this frankly tragic bowl on my desk. Sometimes I'd talk to her about how it felt to be fourteen and absolutely nobody at all. She'd just bubble at me, which was more supportive than half my friends.

"You're like the sphinx," my friend Mia said one day, sprawled across my floor while we studied for finals. "All mysterious and unreadable, but also probably secretly wise." She was being dramatic because she'd just discovered Greek mythology, but it stuck. I started wearing more dark colors. Started keeping my thoughts closer to my chest.

The real transformation happened at the community pool. I'd been avoiding swimming all summer—body dysmorphia is a bear, let me tell you—but it was ninety-eight degrees and Mia literally dragged me there by my wrist. I stood at the edge in my one-piece, heart hammering, while everyone else cannonballed and screamed.

Then Jake swam over, water droplets running down his arms like he was in a movie. "You coming in or what?"

I looked at the water, at Mia already doing something that looked suspiciously like synchronized dancing, at the lifeguards looking bored and perfect and ancient.

"Yeah," I said, and I jumped.

The water shocked me cold and clean, and I surfaced gasping while chlorine filled my nose. Jake smiled, really smiled, and for the first time all summer I didn't think about who I was supposed to be. I just was—a girl in a pool, swimming toward something new, while somewhere in my room Clementine bubbled on, oblivious and absolutely content.