Sphinx in the Hallway

First day of freshman year and I'm already spiraling. My best **friend** Chloe abandoned me for the volleyball table, leaving me alone with my sad little bento box and the absolute worst thing that could happen at lunch.

I'd decided to reinvent myself over summer—new haircut, new vibe, trying out this whole being healthy thing. Which led to the spinach incident. The cafeteria lady had plopped a massive pile of the stuff on my tray, and I was trying to be chill about it, but spinach is honestly just decorative grass that someone decided to call food.

Then Jason Miller—literal school mascot, built like a tank, wearing his BULL basketball warm-up jersey—tripped over his own feet and sent his tray flying. Milk, mashed potatoes, and somehow MY spinach ended up creating a modern art installation on my favorite vintage hoodie.

"Sorry," he said, all genuine and flustered. But I just sat there, humiliated, green flecks everywhere.

I bolted. No—running, like actually sprinting down the hallway past the mysterious sphinx graffiti on the third floor. The one with the painted eyes that seem to follow you. The one that appeared overnight junior year and nobody knows who painted.

Jason caught up. "I was gonna offer to pay for dry cleaning."

"Why? You don't even know my name."

"Maya," he said. "You're in my history class. You always sit by the window and draw on your worksheets."

Oh.

"And," he continued, "I'm the one who painted the sphinx last year."

My mouth literally fell open. The mascot bull was the sphinx artist?

"Why?"

"Dunno," he shrugged. "Sometimes you just gotta make something that makes people wonder."

Later, wearing his spare warm-up jacket because mine was spinach-ruined, I sat with Chloe and Jason at lunch. Sometimes the worst days turn into something okay. Sometimes a bully basketball player is just a guy who paints sphinxes on walls when nobody's watching. And sometimes spinach is just spinach—but sometimes it's how you meet your new best friend.