The Sphinx by the Pool

My hair was doing that thing again—the frizz halo that made me look like I'd stuck a fork in an electrical socket. I yanked my beat-up baseball cap lower, hoping no one at Jasmine's pool party would notice the new girl having a personal crisis by the snack table.

"You gonna swim or just guard the chips all day?"

I looked up. Marcus. The guy who sat behind me in World History, currently shirtless and unfairly confident. Behind him, Jasmine's fat orange tabby cat was perched on the diving board like it owned the place.

"I'm good," I mumbled.

"Your cat's about to take a plunge," he said, nodding toward the diving board.

We both watched as the cat—clearly offended by something invisible—decided the diving board had personally betrayed it and made a majestic leap directly into the center of the pool. Splash. Chaos erupted. People were screaming-laughing, someone was filming, and I was already moving.

I didn't think. I just shucked off my flip-flops and dove in.

The water shocked my system but I reached the cat in three strokes, scooping up the soggy, indignant furball while doing my best not to get scratched. When I surfaced, hauling the cat to the pool's edge, the whole party was clapping.

"That was legendary," Marcus said, extending a hand to pull me up.

My hat was gone. My hair was a wreck. But when I looked at Marcus, he wasn't laughing at me. He was looking at me like I was actually interesting.

"You know," he said, handing me a towel, "the sphinx only made sense once someone stopped trying to solve it and just accepted the mystery."

"What?"

"Your hair." He grinned. "It's kind of amazing. Like, why hide it?"

I looked at my reflection in the sliding glass door—wet, wild, totally uncontrolled. Maybe that was the point. Some things weren't meant to be solved. Just lived with.