Sandpaper Sphinx

The pyramid of granola bars sat untouched in my locker while freshmen filtered into the cafeteria. My dad kept texting about baseball tryouts — "Just like your brother," "Don't disappoint the team," the usual pressure-cooker speech. But honestly? I was more nervous about what Mia would say if I told her I'd rather try out for padel.

"You going to eat that papaya or stare at it all lunch?" Mia dropped into the seat across from me, dangling her phone. "Because Lucas posted something... interesting."

My stomach did that stupid flippy thing. Lucas, who I'd been crushing on since seventh grade. Lucas, whose locker was decorated with ancient Egypt stickers and who always smelled like coconut deodorant.

I leaned in. "What kind of interesting?"

Mia slid her phone over. There it was: a photo of Lucas's history project, a clay sphinx with weirdly human eyes. The caption read: "working on something for someone special."

My brain short-circuited. Was the sphinx for me? Or was I reading way too much into it (again)?

"He asked about you yesterday," Mia said, watching my face. "Asked if you were trying out for baseball again."

I pushed the papaya around my tray. "What'd you say?"

"That you'd been talking about padel instead." She shrugged. "Which is true."

I waited for the judgment. For the "but baseball is your thing" speech I got from everyone else. Instead, Mia just ate my french fries.

"So? Are you?"

"I don't know." I traced patterns in the condensation on my juice bottle. "Baseball is what everyone expects. But padel... I don't know. It feels more like me."

"Then do padel." Simple as that.

I took a bite of papaya. It was sweet and weird and nothing like I expected, kind of like freshman year itself. The sphinx of Lucas's affections (or lack thereof) would remain unsolved for now. Some riddles aren't meant to be cracked immediately.

But as I headed to my locker to finally throw away that granola pyramid, my phone buzzed. Lucas: "Hey, heard you might try padel. Want to hit around sometime?"

Sometimes the universe gives you exactly what you need, wrapped in a sphinx-shaped mystery package.