Riddle in the Pocket

Maya's thumb hovered over her iPhone screen, the glass already smudged with nervous sweat. Three notifications blinked at her—Zoey asking where she was, Leo's Instagram story, and a text from Mom that said "Good luck!" with way too many exclamation points. She was supposed to be at the Egyptian exhibit in twenty minutes for what Zoey had sworn would be "literally the most chill first date ever."

The museum air conditioning blasted her as she stepped inside, and Maya immediately regretted wearing her favorite orange hoodie—the one Leo had said looked "fire" that one time they'd talked in homeroom. Now she was just an orange beacon of awkwardness in a sea of neutral-colored tourists.

She found him near the sphinx statue, the smaller one that nobody really cared about because it wasn't THE Sphinx. Leo was wearing that flannel shirt again, the soft-looking one, and he was actually reading the plaque like a complete nerd. Maya's heart did this weird fluttery thing that definitely wasn't from the exhibit's dramatic lighting.

"Hey," she said, and it came out too quiet. She cleared her throat. "Hey."

Leo turned, and his smile was genuine. "Oh, hey! You found it. This sphinx is actually wild—it was discovered with this partially intact riddle carved into the base." He pointed at the weathered limestone. "Can you imagine? They literally had to solve it to prove they were worthy."

Maya's phone buzzed in her pocket—Zoey again, probably demanding to know if they'd held hands yet—but she ignored it. "What happened if you couldn't solve it?"

"That's the thing." Leo stepped closer, his shoulder brushing hers. "The riddle got destroyed before anyone could translate it fully. So now nobody knows what the question was, let alone the answer."

They stood there in comfortable silence, Maya hyper-aware of everywhere their bodies weren't touching, and she thought about how sometimes the scariest sphinxes weren't made of stone at all. They were the ones you carried around in your pocket, the ones that demanded answers you weren't ready to give: Do you like me? Am I pretty enough? Is this real?

"Your hoodie," Leo said suddenly, his voice dropping to something softer. "It's really... it's nice. The orange. It suits you."

Maya smiled, and for the first time all day, her phone stayed completely dark in her pocket. Some riddles didn't need answers right away. Sometimes it was enough just to stand there in the orange light of the museum exhibit and let yourself wonder.