Sphinxes Don't Do Homework

Maya felt like a zombie—a legit, brain-fried, walking-dead zombie. Third consecutive all-nighter to finish her Sphinx sculpture for the Spring Art Showcase, and she was running on pure adrenaline and questionable life choices.

The clay sphinx stared back at her with its weirdly human face and lion body. Funny how it was supposed to represent wisdom and mystery, but Maya mostly saw judgment in those unblinking eyes. Like it knew she was questioning everything—her art, her major, whether she was just playing at being an artist.

"You good, Mays?" Kai asked, sliding into the chair beside her. He pushed over a sliced papaya. "Stole it from the staff lounge. Exotic emotional support fruit."

Maya snorted. "Is that what we're calling it now?"

"Don't knock it till you try it." He popped a piece into his mouth, grinning. The fluorescent lights caught the orange streak in his dark hair—why'd she notice stuff like that? Why'd her stomach do that weird little flip whenever he sat next to her?

She tried the papaya. Sweet, kind of musky, totally unfamiliar. "Okay, this slaps actually."

"Told you." Kai leaned back, spinning a clay tool between his fingers. "Your sphinx is gonna crush it. You've been working on it since, like, the Mesozoic era."

"That's not even when sphinxes existed—"

"You know what I mean." His face softened. "Maya, you're gonna be fine. You're not gonna flop. You're not gonna disappoint anyone."

Something tightened in her chest. The fear she'd been carrying all semester—that she was a fake, that she'd crash and burn, that everyone would see she'd never belonged in advanced art to begin with.

The sphinx kept watching.

Kai reached out and gently adjusted the clay lion's paw. "Besides, sphinxes are supposed to be guardians, right? Gatekeepers. Maybe yours is protecting something important."

"Like what?"

"Like you believing in yourself." He said it casually, like it wasn't the most terrifyingly real thing anyone had said to her in months.

Maya stared at her sculpture. The sphinx didn't look judgmental anymore. It looked patient. Ancient. Like it had been waiting centuries for her to figure out what she was supposed to guard.

She ate another piece of papaya, sweet and strange and new on her tongue. The fluorescent lights hummed. Kai's orange hair caught the light again.

Maybe she didn't have to have everything figured out. Maybe being a work in progress was okay.

"Thanks," she said quietly.

"Anytime." He bumped her shoulder with his. "Now finish this lion-cat-thing so we can both go home and sleep for approximately a hundred years."