Static and Sphinxes

Maya's thumbs moved across her iphone screen like they were playing a piano—swiping, typing, deleting, retyping. The message to Jordan had been sitting in drafts for twenty minutes: "hey, wanna hang later?" Too casual. "would you be down to study together?" Too nerdy. Meanwhile, Jordan stood three feet away, looking completely unfazed, talking animation with the popular crowd.

The school field trip to the museum was supposed to be better than sitting in calculus, but honestly? The air conditioning was too cold, her crush was ignoring her, and now she was stuck staring at the Great Sphinx of Hatshepsut while her phone battery dwindled to 12%.

"It's actually kind of deep," said a voice beside her.

Maya jumped. It was Jordan.

"What?"

"The sphinx." Jordan nodded toward the glass case. "It's this creature that's part lion, part human, and it asks riddles. If you can't answer, it eats you. Basically high school, right?"

Maya laughed despite herself. "Pretty much."

"Hey, your phone's about to die," Jordan said. "You want my charger? It's in my bag."

"Oh. Yeah, that'd be great. Thanks."

But before Jordan could move, the entire museum went pitch black.

"Whoa," someone said.

Then—CRACK. A lightning bolt struck so close that the fluorescent lights buzzed back on instantly, flickering like strobe lights. Everyone screamed. Maya's heart hammered against her ribs.

"That was insane," Jordan said, their face illuminated by the flickering overheads. For a second, just a second, they looked at Maya—really looked at her.

"Yeah," Maya breathed. Her phone chimed in her hand. Jordan's phone too.

They both looked down. Same text from their group chat: "DID YALL SEE THAT??"

Jordan typed something. Maya's phone buzzed.

"You're 16 feet away, Jordan. You don't have to text me."

"I know," Jordan said, grinning. "But I wanted to make sure this was real."

Outside, another rumble of thunder rolled through, but Maya didn't care. Her iphone battery was dying, the museum was chaos, and she'd spent the whole day overthinking everything.

But Jordan was right there. And sometimes, she realized, you didn't need to solve the riddle. You just had to be brave enough to ask it.