Battery Life and Riddles

Maya's iPhone flashed 12% battery. Not great when you're about to DM your crush for the first time.

Across the baseball field, Leo stretched near the dugout, his jersey catching the afternoon sun. Maya had been watching him from the bleachers during practice since March, which was basically pathetic.

"Just text him already," Jordan said, nudging her with a sneaker. Jordan was that friend — the one who called you out while simultaneously scrolling TikTok.

"I can't. What if he reads it and leaves me on delivered?"

"Worse. What if he actually replies and you have to, like, talk?"

Maya groaned. This was the problem with modern relationships. Everything happened through screens. The sphinx in English class had it easier — at least her riddles were face-to-face.

Speaking of. The English presentation on sphinx mythology was tomorrow, and Maya had prepared exactly zero slides.

"The sphinx asked Oedipus a riddle," Mr. Henderson had explained last week. "'What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?' Answer wrong, and you got eaten. Classic toxic behavior."

The bell rang. Players jogged toward the parking lot. Leo paused, looked right at the bleachers where Maya and Jordan sat.

Her heart did that stupid flutter thing. She raised her phone. Leo waved, then pointed at something behind her and mouthed, "You forgot this."

Maya turned. Her sphinx project notes — the ones she'd handwritten because her iPad was dead — were spread across the bench, and the wind was about to take them.

She scrambled to gather the papers. When she turned back, Leo was still there, waiting.

"You're Maya, right? From English?"

Her brain short-circuited. "Y-yeah."

"Sphinx mythology," he said, like it was the most normal thing ever. "I'm doing the same presentation. You have good notes."

She blinked. Leo — perfect, baseball-playing, gorgeous Leo — was asking about her sphinx notes?

"I could, um, send you pictures of them?" Her phone died in her hand. Screen black. Of course.

Leo laughed. It was a real laugh, not mean. "Tell you what — meet me at the library after school? We can study together."

As he walked away, Jordan elbowed her. "Well played. The riddle wasn't about legs or time or whatever."

"What?"

"The sphinx's riddle." Jordan grinned. "It's about growing up. Crawling, walking, then needing support. It's just life."

Maya looked at her dead phone, then at Leo's retreating back. Some things couldn't be solved with screens or riddles or carefully planned DMs.

"Yeah," she said. "I think I'm finally figuring that out."