The Riddle of Real

Maya's golden retriever, Buster, nudged her hand with that wet-nose persistence that meant *someone* needed attention. But Maya couldn't look away from her iPhone screen, thumb hovering over yet another carefully crafted response to Jade's group chat.

Her friends were discussing the party at Tyler's house—the one Maya hadn't been invited to. Again.

"Ugh, I'm literally gonna die if my parents don't let me go," Jade typed. Three heart-eye emojis followed.

Maya started typing: "Omg same!" But deleted it. Same what? Same FOMO? Same not invited energy? The performance was exhausting.

"You good, girl?" her best friend Kira DM'd separately.

Maya stared at the screen. Outside her window, the neighbor's dog was running circles in the yard, chasing its tail like it might actually catch happiness that way. That was Maya—running in circles, chasing validation she couldn't name.

Her phone buzzed again. Another notification. Another dopamine hit disguised as connection.

Something hit her then, hard as a truth vitamin she'd been deficient on for too long: this wasn't friendship. It was audience participation.

She remembered Mr. Harrison's English class last week, talking about the sphinx from Egyptian mythology—that creature who asked riddles and devoured anyone who couldn't answer. *What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening?* Man. The answer was about human growth, about change.

But here was her sphinx, her riddle: *Who are you when no one's watching?*

Maya's fingers hovered over the keyboard. The easy answer was the curated one—the version of herself that posted aesthetic sunset photos and used the right slang and performed adequacy for an audience of peers.

But sphinxes don't accept easy answers.

Buster whined, that low rumble that meant *I'm here, I'm real, pay attention to what's actually here.*

Maya set her phone face-down on her bed. The silence rushed in like air into a vacuum—terrifying, electric, real.

"You're right," she whispered to the dog. "Running in circles."

Outside her window, the neighbor's dog had finally stopped running. It was lying in the grass now, panting, seemingly content with simply existing.

Maya picked up her phone, opened the notes app, and started typing something that wasn't for anyone else:

*I don't actually like Tyler's parties. I prefer the library. I miss reading books that aren't assigned. I want to write something that matters. I'm tired of performing.*

The answer to her riddle wasn't pretty or post-worthy. It was messy and honest and incomplete.

And for the first time in months, Maya didn't feel like running.