The Sphinx by the Pool

I felt like a total zombie after staying up until 3 AM scrolling through Leo's Instagram. Now here I was at Jessica's massive pool party, wearing my mom's old floral bikini because I couldn't find a cute one in my size. Classic Maya — perpetually awkward and visibly dead inside.

While everyone else splashed around looking effortlessly cool, I sat in the shade nursing a papaya smoothie Jessica's mom had made. The tropical sweetness felt wrong in my mouth, like I was trying to be something I wasn't. My hands shook around the plastic cup, and I wished, not for the first time, that I could just disappear.

Then Ariella Chen — the literal sphinx of our sophomore class — materialized beside me. She was gorgeous in that intimidating way, always carrying some weird philosophy book during lunch while everyone else was scrolling TikTok. She never spoke to anyone, which made her even more fascinating.

"You look like you'd rather be literally anywhere else," she said, her voice surprisingly warm.

I shrugged, trying to play it cool. "Just not really a pool party person. More of a 'sit in my room and overthink everything' person."

She laughed, and the sound transformed her from untouchable to human. "Same. I only came because my mom's friends with Jessica's mom. Social obligation." She gestured toward the pool where Jessica was dramatically posing for photos. "Everyone's performing. It's exhausting, right?"

"Totally." The word came out too fast, sounding desperate.

"Wanna get out of here?" she asked, and I noticed she was already holding her shoes.

We ended up sitting on the front curb eating fresh papaya from her mom's fruit bowl with our fingers. The juice ran down my chin, but weirdly, I didn't care.

"You know what's funny," Ariella said, wiping her mouth, "we're all walking around pretending we've got it figured out. But really, we're all just kind of zombies making it up."

I looked at her — really looked at her — and realized something. Maybe everyone felt dead inside sometimes. Maybe even the sphinx had doubts.

"My dad says papaya tastes like feet," she said, making a face.

I laughed so hard the papaya seeds went everywhere.

Later, I finally got in the pool. Ariella jumped in after me, and we floated on our backs staring at the sky. For the first time all summer, I didn't feel like a zombie, didn't feel awkward. I felt like someone who might actually figure this out. Eventually.