Riddle Under the Orange Sky

Maya's palms were sweating — like, actually dripping — as she stood outside Jake's house party. The **orange** sunset painted the sky like someone had spilled soda across the horizon, which was fitting because she was pretty sure she was about to embarrass herself.

Inside, the bass from someone's Bluetooth speaker thumped against her chest. Some guy was struggling with an HDMI **cable**, trying to hook up Netflix for "chill vibes" while three girls filmed it for their story. "This is literally so sad," one of them whispered, and Maya pretended not to hear.

She'd spent forty minutes on her hair, sprayed enough dry shampoo to last a week, and now she couldn't even walk through the door. Her phone buzzed. Her best friend: "you coming or what? also there's **spinach** dip so you're missing out"

Maya took a breath and walked in.

Jake was in the kitchen, looking unfairly good in a flannel that probably cost more than her entire outfit. He caught her eye and smiled. "Hey! You made it."

"Yeah," she said. "Traffic was... traffic."

Smooth. Truly smooth.

Someone had set up a weird statue in the corner — a miniature **sphinx**, like, why? Jake's friends were weird. But then Jake gestured to it dramatically.

"Okay so whoever solves the riddle gets the last slice of pizza," he announced. The room went dead silent. This was the most important thing that had ever happened.

Jake leaned in close to Maya. His **palm** brushed against hers when he reached for the soda behind her, and she almost forgot how to breathe. "You got this," he said.

The riddle was something about walking on four legs, then two, then three. Classic. Maya knew this one — she'd had to memorize it for sixth grade English.

"Man," she said. "A person crawls as a baby, walks as an adult, uses a cane when they're old."

Everyone stared. Then Jake's friend Carlos started slow-clapping. "Okay then, Maya from English class. Didn't know you were lowkey a genius."

Jake grinned. "Told you."

Maya stood there with her spinach dip, her orange-stained fingers from the Cheetos she'd stress-eaten earlier, and realized maybe this high school thing wasn't so terrifying after all.

Maybe.