Riddles at Home Plate

Marcus wiped his sweaty palm on his jeans—not that it helped. The baseball tryouts were tomorrow and his nerves were doing jumping jacks without permission.

"You're overthinking it again," said Jia, dangling upside down from the monkey bars like a bat who'd given up on flying. "Just hit the ball, run the bases, done."

"Easy for you to say," Marcus muttered. "You're not the one whose dad keeps asking if you've made varsity yet. Like he's some kind of sphinx guarding the entrance to manhood, and I gotta solve his riddles before I can pass."

Jia cracked up, nearly falling. "Okay, first of all, that's weirdly poetic for you. Second, your dad literally just wants you to be happy."

Marcus frowned. The conversation with his dad from breakfast kept replaying in his head—the casual "so, baseball tryouts tomorrow?" that somehow carried the weight of expectations Marcus couldn't quite name. It wasn't even about the sport. It was about everything.

Who he was supposed to be. What "making it" looked like. The unspoken checklist that supposedly turned boys into men.

He was running from something, but he couldn't say what.

"My palm is literally shaking," he admitted, holding up his hand.

"Dude," Jia said, flipping upright and landing with a thud. "You know what's crazy? You're worried about impressing people who won't remember tryouts in a year. Your dad? He's gonna be proud either way. The sphinx is you. You're the one guarding your own gate."

Marcus stared at him. "When did you get all wise?"

"I've been reading, bro. It's called books. Look them up."

The next day, Marcus stood at home plate, heart hammering. The pitcher wound up and released. The ball came at him, fast and terrifying and perfect.

He didn't think about expectations. He didn't think about his dad, or proving himself, or any riddle but the simplest one: Can you hit this?

His palm connected with the bat. The crack echoed like permission.

He ran. Not away from something, but toward everything he'd been too scared to claim.

Later, his dad would high-five him so hard his shoulder stung, and Marcus would realize the sphinx had never been his dad at all.

The sphinx was his own fear.

And he'd just solved it.