The Riddle of Everything

Maya's mom stood in the kitchen doorway, holding out the neon orange bottle like it was some kind of peace offering.

"Your vitamin gummies, Maya. You've been skipping them again."

"Mom, I'm fifteen, not five," Maya groaned, though she snagged two anyway. The grape ones were decent, in a sad sort of way.

The social pyramid at Northwood High had felt especially steep lately. Maya existed somewhere near the middle—visible enough to wave at people in halls, invisible enough that nobody noticed when she ate lunch alone. Which was fine. Totally fine. She'd downloaded enough Reddit threads to know that "high school hierarchy is literally just a social construct, bro."

Still, she'd been noticing Kai more lately. Kai with his stupid perfect jawline and his unreadable expressions. The guy was basically a human sphinx—impossible to figure out, riddles wrapped in Abercrombie mystery. Every time Maya worked up the courage to say hey, his responses were so cryptic she felt like she needed three hints and a lifeline.

"Hey, did you finish the chem lab?"

"Chemistry is just cooking with consequences."

What did that even MEAN?

The real problem was that Maya had started running every morning. Not because she liked running—she definitely did not like running—but because her brain had reached maximum capacity with everything. College applications. The climate crisis. Why Kai's Instagram posts alternated between deep poetry and random pictures of his cat. Running until her lungs burned and her thoughts dissolved into static was the only thing that helped.

Then came the lightning realization, literally and figuratively.

She'd been halfway through her morning route, already regretting every life choice that led to 6 AM jogging, when the sky went purple and the storm hit. She ducked under the awning of the old coffee shop on 4th, which happened to be where Kai worked.

He was inside, wiping down the counter. Their eyes met through the rain-streaked glass.

The bell above the door chimed. Kai stepped outside, umbrella in hand, and she realized suddenly—embarrassingly late—that she'd been the riddle all along. Kai wasn't being cryptic. He was just awkward. The sphinx vibe? Social anxiety. The weird answers? Panic responses.

"Hey," he said, holding out the umbrella. "You wanna share? There's, like, barely any room, but..."

Maya laughed, and it wasn't fake laugh, the kind she used when teachers made bad jokes. This was the real thing.

"Only if you stop answering my questions like you're being paid by the riddle."

Kai grinned. "Deal. Also, I totally saw you stealing those vitamin gummies at lunch. The grape ones are elite."

Maya's heart did that annoying fluttery thing. "You noticed?"

"I notice everything, Maya. I'm just bad at, like, words."

Lightning struck somewhere in the distance, but for once, she didn't jump.