Riddles in the Rain

Maya's buzz cut was still growing out, the shortest in the friend group, but she wore it like armor. Tonight, at Jessica's house party, the armor felt thin.

She stood on the back porch, nursing a lukewarm soda. Inside, the bass thumped like a second heartbeat. Her iPhone lit up with notifications—snaps from the party she was literally attending, people posting Instagram stories of the same moment she was living through a glass darkly. Pathetic.

You know who would've crushed this? The Sphinx. That mythical creature who posed riddles and destroyed you if you failed. Being a teenager felt like living that myth daily. What did everyone else know that she didn't? Why did conversation flow so easily for them while she overthought every word like she was defusing a bomb?

The sky cracked open. Lightning split the darkness, electric veins across the clouds.

"Yo, you good?"

Maya jumped. Charlie—Jessica's older brother's friend, the one with the kind smile and perpetually messy hair—stood in the doorway. His phone was tucked away in his pocket. No notifications. No fomo.

"Yeah," Maya lied. "Just needed air."

"Me too." Charlie stepped onto the porch, closing the door behind him. "These things give me social anxiety sometimes. Like, how many conversations can you pretend to care about before your soul leaves your body?"

Maya snorted. "Literally me."

They watched the rain sheet down, the lightning flash-and-thunder routine repeating every thirty seconds. Charlie didn't pull out his phone once. Didn't check the time. Didn't seem bored.

"You know," he said suddenly, "I used to think everyone else had some secret manual. Like they were all born knowing how to be normal."

"And then?"

"Then I realized nobody knows what they're doing. We're all just winging it and hoping nobody notices we have no clue."

Another flash of lightning. This time, for a second, Maya believed him.

"Want to go back inside?" Charlie asked. "We could suffer through the awkward together. Misery loves company."

Maya smiled—a real one. "Yeah. Okay."

Her iPhone stayed in her pocket as they walked back in. The riddle hadn't been solved, exactly. But maybe the answer wasn't to solve it. Maybe it was just to live through the question marks together.