Static Charge at Midnight

My iPhone buzzed in my pocket like a trapped insect, but I ignored it. Tonight was about not being the girl who checked notifications every twelve seconds. Tonight was about being someone else—someone with a costume and actual social capital.

The bass from Maya's speakers thumped against my ribs. Zombie makeup streaked across faces like war paint. A dead president high-fived a vampire. I'd come as a sphinx—riddle-obsessed, cryptic, impossible to understand. Three weeks of Pinterest tutorials had gotten me here, wrapped in gold fabric that kept catching on doorframes, feeling like a living ancient riddle nobody wanted to solve.

"You look like you're mentally calculating escape routes."

I jumped. A zombie clown stood beside me, face paint smeared, holding a cup that smelled like trouble. Carter. From AP Calc. The one who drew dinosaurs in the margins of his notes and somehow still got straight A's.

"Maybe I am," I said, channeling my inner cryptic mysterious being. "What's the riddle?"

He laughed, and it was surprisingly genuine. "The riddle is why we're at a party when we could be anywhere else. My friend group bailed, I got dragged along. What about you, Sphinx? What's your deal?"

I should've made something cool. Mysterious. Instead, the truth spilled out like I'd been waiting to tell someone anyone. "I'm trying to reinvent myself. Again. Third time this semester."

"Wild." Carter sipped his drink. "Does reinvention hurt?"

"It's exhausting," I admitted. "Like being a zombie but without the cool makeup. Just walking around dead inside, pretending to know who you're supposed to be."

Then it happened—lightning cracked through the living room window, flash-freezing everything in harsh white light for one perfect second. In that instant, I saw everything clearly: the girl I'd been trying to become, the real me standing there in gold face paint, Carter looking at me like I was actually interesting. Not mysterious. Interesting.

"You know," he said as the room erupted back into motion, "you don't need a riddle. You're pretty cool as-is."

My iPhone buzzed again. I didn't check it. For the first time all night, I was exactly where I wanted to be.