Riddle of the Friday Night Lights

Jordan leaned against the chain-link fence, feeling like a total zombie after three hours of AP History cramming. The baseball field lights hummed overhead, casting long shadows across the empty diamond where practice had ended two hours ago.

"You coming to Carter's party?" Maya asked, appearing beside him with her signature 'don't mess with me' expression.

Jordan hesitated. The parties weren't really his scene — too many people pretending to be someone they weren't. But Maya was different. She'd moved here in October and somehow managed to float between every social group without getting stuck in any of them.

"Nah, I'm good," Jordan said, though his stomach did that stupid flutter thing whenever Maya looked at him like that.

"That's bull," she called him out immediately. "You're just scared you'll have to actually talk to people."

Jordan's cat — who he'd secretly named Pharaoh because the sphinx sculpture in Mr. Henderson's class had the same judgmental expression — jumped onto his windowsill that morning and literally screamed at him until he'd gotten out of bed. Now Jordan wondered if Pharaoh was secretly smarter than him.

"Maybe," Jordan admitted. "Parties just feel like this riddle I can't solve, you know? Like that sphinx prompt in English last week. 'What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening?' Except it's 'What do you say when you don't know what to say?'"

Maya laughed, and it was this warm, genuine sound that made Jordan want to say more awkward things just to hear it again.

"The answer's 'whatever feels true,'" she said, then pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket. "Speaking of sphinx riddles — Carter's doing this escape room thing instead of a regular party. Teams. Riddles. Actual thinking instead of standing around awkwardly holding solo cups."

She held out the paper. "I need a partner. Someone who actually paid attention in Henderson's class."

The bull in Jordan's head — that voice that always told him to stay safe, stay invisible, don't risk looking foolish — started screaming. But then he remembered Pharaoh screaming at him through the window that morning, how sometimes you needed someone to push you out of your comfort zone.

"I'm in," Jordan said, and Maya's smile was worth every terrifying second.

"Good," she said. "Because rumor is Carter's escape room has a zombie apocalypse theme, and I am terrible with anything horror-related. I need someone who won't abandon me when the fake blood starts flowing."

Jordan grinned. "I've survived three years of locker room baseball talk. Fake zombies got nothing on that."

"Deal," she said, and as they walked toward the parking lot, Jordan realized some riddles don't need answers — they just need someone to help you figure them out.