Orange Hair, Sphinx Stares

The bathroom mirror reflected someone I didn't recognize anymore. Well, the hair was a dead giveaway – I'd spent three hours transforming my mousy brown into a screaming neon orange that looked like a traffic cone had exploded on my head.

"You look like a radioactive Cheeto," Maya said, leaning against the doorframe with her signature smirk. "But like, in a hot way?"

I rolled my eyes. "Thanks, bestie. Really selling the confidence."

Maya wasn't wrong, though. The orange hair was loud. It was a middle finger to my parents' expectations, to the college applications gathering dust on my desk, to the version of myself that everyone expected me to be. The girl who got straight A's, who played violin, who never caused trouble. That girl was gone, replaced by someone who made questionable decisions with boxed hair dye at 2 AM.

"So," Maya lowered her voice. "You still spying on Jordan's Instagram story?"

"I'm not spying," I protested, but my face burned hotter than my hair. "It's called gathering intel. There's a difference."

"You literally refresh his profile every five minutes. That's not intel, that's obsession."

I grabbed my phone anyway. Jordan, with his perfect smile and his lacrosse jersey and his girlfriend who definitely didn't have orange hair. Jordan, who probably thought I was weird even before the hair incident.

School the next day was exactly as terrible as I'd expected. The orange hair might as well have been a spotlight. People stared. Whispered. I caught Jordan looking at me in homeroom, but he quickly turned away.

Then there was Ms. Gable's English class. She'd taped a picture of the Great Sphinx of Giza to the whiteboard, presumably for our mythology unit. But something about it caught my attention – the way the statue's stone face seemed to hold all the world's secrets, all its impossible riddles. The Sphinx, guardian of mysteries, demanding answers before you could pass.

"What riddles are you hiding?" I whispered to it.

"Nice hair," said a voice behind me.

I jumped. Jordan. Standing at my desk. Actually talking to me.

"Thanks," I managed, my voice cracking. "It's... new."

"Yeah, I noticed." He grinned. "It's bold. Like, really bold." He paused. "I like it."

My heart did this embarrassing flutter thing. "Oh. Cool."

"Hey, so I'm at the coffee shop on Main Street studying for calculus if you want to join? Unless you have to..." He gestured vaguely at my hair. "Do other stuff."

Maya, who'd been watching this entire exchange with barely contained excitement, kicked my chair. Hard.

"She's free," Maya said. "Totally free."

The Sphinx stared down from the whiteboard, and I could've sworn it was winking. Some riddles don't need answering – they just need you to be brave enough to ask them.