The Fox in the Mirror

Maya stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, wondering if she'd become a zombie overnight. Junior year homecoming was in three hours, and she'd spent the last two weeks avoiding Antonio's texts like her life depended on it.

"You look fine," her little brother Leo called from the hallway. "But there's a sphinx on the porch."

"A what?"

"A sphinx. Mom says it's supposed to be mysterious or whatever."

Maya followed him outside, where their mom had somehow convinced their dad to build a six-foot concrete sphinx for the garden. "It's conversation starter!" Mom had said.

Now Maya sat on the sphinx's concrete paw, scrolling through Antonio's messages again.

*You coming?*

*I saved you a dance*

*???

A goldfish memory would've been useful right now. Forget the embarrassment of throwing up at his party last month. Forget how everyone had stared. Forget that Antonio had held her hair back and she'd still run away like he was contagious.

The TV cable box sat discarded on the porch rail, disconnected during yesterday's remodeling chaos. Maya's phone buzzed. Antonio calling.

She almost declined. Almost.

"Hello?"

"Your brother posted on Snapchat that you're sitting on a sphinx," Antonio said. "That's your safe space now?"

"Shut up, Leo."

"I'm coming over."

"Don't—"

"Too late. Already in the car."

Maya's heart did that thing where it felt like a fox was trapped in her chest, frantic and wild. She touched up her lip gloss in the sphinx's stone eye. Smoothed her dress.

When Antonio pulled up, he didn't get out immediately. Just sat there, engine running, looking at her.

"I'm not going to homecoming," he said through the window.

"What?"

"Unless you're going with me. Not as friends. Not as whatever we've been doing since seventh grade when I was too scared to tell you I loved you."

The fox in her chest went still.

"You threw up on my shoes, Maya. And I didn't care. I still don't care. I'm showing up to your porch in my dad's minivan looking desperate because I'd rather look desperate than spend one more day wondering."

Maya slid off the sphinx. Walked to the passenger side. Got in.

"Your tie is crooked," she said.

"Fix it for me?"

She reached over, hands steady for the first time all night. The zombie in the mirror was gone. The girl staring back knew exactly who she was.

"I love you too, idiot."