Riddle in the Bathroom Mirror

Maya's hair was doing that thing again—the thing where it defied physics, humidity, and every expensive product she'd wasted her allowance on. She stood in front of her iPhone's camera, angling for the fifteenth time, trying to capture the perfect mirror selfie for her finsta. The bathroom fluorescent lighting was not her friend, and neither was this cowlick that seemed determined to ruin her life before Jordan's party tonight.

Her phone buzzed. Group chat: **Who's bringing the chargers??**

Maya typed back with one hand while attempting to smooth her hair with the other. Already got mine. And Jordan's. Because I'm a literal angel.

"You've been in there for forty-five minutes," her little brother called through the door. "Some people need to pee, you know."

"Some people are having an identity crisis, Kevin," Maya shot back. "Some people are questioning everything about their existence."

It wasn't even really about the hair. Well, it was, but also it wasn't. Junior year was hitting different—expectations piling up like unread notifications, everyone asking what college she wanted, what she wanted to *be*, as if sixteen-year-olds were supposed to have their entire lives mapped out. She felt like she was constantly performing, curating, filtering. Even her real life felt like an Instagram caption that wasn't quite clever enough.

Her history teacher had assigned them a research project on mythology. She'd chosen the sphinx—that ancient creature with the body of a lion and the head of a human, guarding secrets and demanding answers. Strangers who couldn't pass would be devoured. It felt uncomfortably relatable. The sphinx's riddle: What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?

The answer was *humans*—crawling as babies, walking as adults, leaning on canes in old age. But Maya had been thinking about it differently. What if the riddle wasn't about legs? What if it was about versions of yourself—the you that exists at dawn, the you at noon, the you at dusk? How many selves did you shed before becoming who you actually were?

Her phone lit up with a text from Jordan: **u coming?? party lowkey dead without u**

Maya looked at herself in the mirror one more time. Her hair was still doing whatever it wanted. Her outfit was maybe trying too hard. But she was going to show up anyway, because that's what you did. You figured it out as you went along. You solved the riddle by living through it.

She grabbed her bag and her iPhone, opened the bathroom door, and yelled, "FINALLY done, you're welcome."

Her hair was a mess. She had no idea what she was doing with her life. But she had a party to get to, friends who needed her, and a sphinx riddle to keep thinking about.

Some answers just took time.