The Riddle of Friday Night

Maya felt like a literal **zombie**, shuffling through the school hallway on four hours of sleep. Junior year was absolutely midterms from hell, and her group chat had been blowing up since 6 AM with crisis after crisis.

"You look deceased," said Priya, slamming her locker shut with enough force to wake the dead. "Also, Tyler texted me."

Tyler. The mention hit Maya like **lightning**, sharp and unexpected. They'd been flirting at Jackson's party last weekend—well, if you could call sitting on the same couch for three hours while both pretended to check Instagram "flirting." The social **pyramid** at Westwood High was brutal, and Tyler sat comfortably near the top. Maya was... somewhere around the middle, struggling not to slide into the basement.

"And?" Maya tried to sound casual, like her heart wasn't doing gymnastics.

"He's going to the museum tonight. With friends. You should come."

The city museum. Because nothing says "teen romance" like Egyptian artifacts and educational plaques. But Maya said yes, because apparently that's what you do when you're seventeen and someone who looks like that might be interested.

The museum was nearly empty at 7 PM on a Friday—because apparently normal teenagers had social lives that didn't involve ancient history. Tyler's crew was already there, gathered around the Egyptian exhibit like it was the most fascinating thing on Earth.

"Yo, check out this **sphinx**," Tyler said, grinning at Maya like she'd personally carved the statue herself. "What do you think it would say if it could talk?"

The riddle question. Classic.

"Probably something about how annoying freshmen are," someone joked, and everyone laughed. Tyler just kept looking at her, though, like she was the only one who might have a real answer.

They ended up at the food court afterward—Maya, Tyler, Priya, and Jackson, who was somehow managing to eat an entire slice of pepperoni pizza in three bites. They talked about nothing and everything: teachers who gave too much homework, the football team's **bear** mascot that had escaped during homecoming and was last seen heading toward the creek, college applications that felt like they were due approximately yesterday.

"So," Tyler said, as they were walking to the parking lot. "You doing anything tomorrow?"

Maya's brain short-circuited. "I mean, I have AP chem study group at 2, but after that... nothing?"

"Cool." He smiled, and it wasn't a fake Instagram smile—it was real. "Want to hang?"

She said yes. Obviously.

Later that night, Maya lay in bed staring at her ceiling, unable to sleep, feeling like the sphinx had finally whispered its answer: Sometimes the best riddles aren't solved. They're just lived through, awkward and amazing all at once.