The Sphinx by the Pool

At Ryder's epic summer bash, I lurked by the pool feeling like a total fraud. Everyone else seemed to float effortlessly through conversations while I just... sank. Social anxiety, my old nemesis.

Then I spotted Cleo—new girl with wild curls and eyes like she knew things she shouldn't. She sat cross-legged near the pool filter, completely unbothered by the chaos. Something about her screamed I'd make it weird.

"Spying again?" Ryder's older brother Jax appeared behind me. He called me "spy" because once, at his party last month, I'd been so anxious I accidentally memorized everyone's drink orders. It became a thing.

"Just observing," I muttered.

Jax smirked. "You know what Cleo's doing? She's the only one who figured out my sphinx riddle."

"Sphinx riddle?"

"Yeah. In that gazebo." He pointed to a stone sphinx statue I'd assumed was just decor. "Prize inside is legit. But nobody else bothered trying."

The bully energy radiating off him made my skin prickle, but curiosity won.

Cleo looked up as I approached. "You going to try the riddle or just stand there looking like you're calculating escape routes?"

"Both," I admitted.

"Fair." She nodded toward the sphinx's stone base, where ancient Greek letters glowed faintly. "Riddle's: What thing belongs to you but others use it more?"

I thought. Really thought. And for the first time all night, I wasn't calculating angles or retreat paths.

"Your name," I said finally.

Cleo's grin was sudden and bright. "Finally. Someone who actually thinks."

The sphinx's base clicked open. Inside? Not cash or gift cards.

A bowl with two goldfish.

"Anti-climactic?" Cleo asked.

We ended up sitting by the pool edge, feet in the water, goldfish bowl between us like some ancient artifact. She told me she'd moved six times in four years—always the new girl, always the outsider watching.

"I'm tired of being the spy," she said. "Sometimes you want to be the story, not the observer."

Something clicked. The anxiety that usually lived in my chest like a second heart? It quieted.

"You know," I said, "we could take them. The goldfish. Give them a better life than a gazebo prize."

Cleo's eyes lit up. "You think we could pull that off?"

"With Jax distracted? Absolutely."

Later, walking home with goldfish bowl sloshing between us, Cleo said, "You're not a spy, Maya. You're just someone who notices things. That's actually kind of rare."

I realized she was right. Noticing wasn't the same as not belonging.

The goldfish—now free in my aquarium—swim in perfect sync.

I think Cleo and I might too.