Riddles in the Parking Lot

I was running before I even realized my feet were moving. The Thursday night football game buzzed behind me, but I couldn't stay there another second—not with Maya laughing at something Tyler said while my notifications stayed silent.

My sphinx of a French teacher had assigned us to write about who we thought we'd become, like any sixteen-year-old knows that answer. The ancient sphinx asked riddles; Mrs. Chen asked impossible questions and called it "self-reflection."

I ended up at the 24-hour gas station, the same one where my dad's ancient golden retriever, Buster, used to beg for beef jerky before he passed last spring. Some habits stick.

The clerk's iPhone docked by the register played that song everyone's obsessed with—something about falling in love in checkout lines. Meanwhile, I was buying a papaya LAFF Taffy, because apparently that's what you do when you're having an existential crisis at 10 PM on a school night.

"Rough night?" The clerk asked. He looked like he'd seen everything.

"Just thinking about how the sphinx's riddle was literally 'what walks on four legs, then two, then three' and I can't even figure out if I should text Maya or let her be happy with Tyler."

He blinked. "That's deep, kid. The taffy's on me."

Outside, I finally pulled out my phone. Maya had texted: "where'd u go??" Five minutes ago.

I stared at it. The riddle wasn't about legs or years or who becomes what. The riddle was that we're all just running toward something we can't name, hoping someone's running with us.

I typed back: "just needed air. meet me?"

She replied instantly: "omw 🏃‍♀️"

The sphinx would be proud. Some riddles don't have answers—they just have people waiting to figure them out together.