Riddle Under the Lights

The baseball field lights buzzed like angry hornets, casting everything in that weird yellow glow that makes everyone look like they're about to throw up. I stood at home plate, bat sweating in my hands like a nervous palm, while Coach Miller's voice echoed through the darkness.

"Bennett, eyes on the ball! Not on your phone!"

Right. Because my phone was dead anyway. I'd forgotten my charging cable at home, along with my dignity and any natural athletic ability whatsoever. Baseball tryouts. Senior year. What was I even doing here?

The truth was, I was here because Marcus said I'd be a "total loser" if I didn't at least try. Marcus, who'd been my best friend since kindergarten but had somehow transformed into varsity royalty while I was busy discovering that I was, in fact, terrible at everything involving hand-eye coordination.

"You're overthinking it," Chloe said from behind the backstop. She was sitting cross-legged in the grass, reading a battered paperback with some riddle on the cover. "Just swing the bat, Bennie."

Chloe, who had zero interest in sports but showed up anyway because she said my anxiety was "entertainingly dramatic." Whatever that meant.

I adjusted my grip. The pitcher wound up. The ball came at me like a tiny, aggressive comet.

Swing and a miss. Classic Bennett.

"Strike three!" someone yelled. Laughter rippled through the lineup. Not mean laughter, exactly. But not not mean either.

I walked back to the bench, face burning. That's when I saw it – spray-painted on the back of the dugout, covered in layers of old paint but still visible: a crude sphinx drawing, with the words "I AM THE TRUTH" underneath. Someone's graffiti from years ago, now barely there.

Something about it stopped me cold. A sphinx. Guardian of riddles, eater of those who couldn't solve them. Which felt weirdly perfect, actually, because I'd been feeling like I was failing some cosmic riddle all year.

Who am I supposed to be? What do I actually want? Why am I at baseball tryouts when I'd rather be literally anywhere else, learning to cook or drawing or writing or anything that doesn't involve wearing polyester uniforms and public failure?

"Hey." Chloe was suddenly beside me, holding out her book. "Want to hear something dumb?"

"Always."

"So in this book, there's this sphinx that asks people riddles, right? But the thing is, the riddles don't have answers. The trick is realizing that you're supposed to walk away. That knowing when not to play is the real solution."

I looked at her, then at the field, at Marcus in the lineup, at the fading sphinx on the wall. At the bat in my hands, which I suddenly realized I could just... put down.

"I think I'm gonna skip the rest of tryouts," I said. The words came out easier than expected.

Chloe grinned. "Good. There's a diner on Main Street. Their cable's been out for weeks, so they've got this ancient jukebox that only plays hits from 2003. We can get milkshakes and you can tell me what you're actually gonna do this year."

I dropped the bat on the bench. It made a satisfying clatter.

"Deal."