Riddle of the Backup Dancer

The detention room smelled like floor wax and regret. I slouched lower, my beat-up dad hat pulled over my eyes like a shield.

"You okay, Maya?" Jasmine whispered from the next desk. "You've been weird since lunch."

"I'm fine," I lied. I wasn't fine. I'd spent the entire lunch period staring at Liam across the cafeteria while he laughed at something Hannah said, feeling like the world's most awkward backup dancer in someone else's music video.

The principal's voice boomed over the intercom, saving me from further interrogation. "Maya Chen to the drama room, please. Maya Chen."

My stomach dropped. The drama room meant Mr. Torres, and Mr. Torres meant confronting what I'd done.

I walked in expecting detention, not a room full of stolen drama club props and Mr. Torres holding up something that looked remarkably like a golden sphinx statue from the Egyptian exhibit we'd visited last week.

"Care to explain?" he asked, not unkindly.

And then—because the universe has a twisted sense of humor—Liam walked in. He was wearing that cable-knit sweater I'd mentally complimented approximately forty times this month.

"Sorry, Mr. Torres," Liam said, then froze when he saw me. "Oh. Hey, Maya."

"You two know each other?" Mr. Torres raised an eyebrow. "Good. Then you can both explain why this sphinx was found with my drama club's lighting cable wrapped around it."

Liam's face turned the color of a tomato. "I, uh, may have borrowed it for the Egypt project."

"And I may have helped him carry it," I found myself saying. Why? I didn't know. Instinct. Solidarity.

Mr. Torres sighed. "You know what a sphinx represents, right? Riddles. Mysteries. Things that aren't what they seem." He gestured between us. "This statue has been missing for three days. You two have been avoiding each other for three weeks. Anyone else see the connection?"

My face burned. Mr. Torres knew?

"I've been avoiding you because I didn't think you'd want to talk to me," Liam said quietly, not looking at me. "You always wear that hat like you're hiding."

"I'm not hiding," I said, then took off my hat and set it on the desk. "I'm just... new at this. The whole liking someone thing."

Liam smiled—a real one, not the polite ones I'd seen from across the cafeteria. "Same."

"Well," Mr. Torres said, "since you two have clearly figured out the riddle, I'll let you off with a warning. Return the sphinx. Fix the cable setup you messed up. And maybe try actually talking to each other instead of whatever this has been."

Later, as we coiled the heavy cable together, our hands brushed.

"Hey," Liam said. "You want to—"

"Yes," I said.

"I didn't even finish—"

"Still yes."

He laughed, and something in my chest unclenched. The sphinx riddle hadn't been so impossible after all. Sometimes the answer isn't a mystery. It's just taking off the hat and being brave enough to say it out loud.