The Riddle of Us

The ethernet cable lay coiled on my floor like a dead snake, a fossil from last summer when Jordan and I would stay up until 3 AM gaming, eating chips, and complaining about everything and nothing. Now Jordan's phone goes straight to voicemail, and their Instagram stories are all about people I don't know, parties I wasn't invited to.

"You're running away from it," my mom said, finding me in the kitchen at midnight, slamming cabinets. "That's what you do. You run."

"I literally run track, Mom. That's the whole point."

She didn't laugh. Neither did I.

The next day at school, I found Jordan by the old sphinx statue near the library—the one someone'd graffiti-tagged with "ANSWER ME" last year. They were sitting on its stone base, scrolling through their phone, not looking up even when I stood right there.

"Hey," I said. My voice cracked. Classic.

"Hey." Still scrolling.

"So, are we...?" I didn't finish. Couldn't.

Jordan looked up then, and their expression was this careful blank I'd never seen before. "Are we what? Still friends? Maya, we're in different places now. You're still doing the same stuff. I'm... trying new things."

"New things like ditching me?"

"Like not defining my whole life by one person."

The sphinx loomed behind us, silent and riddle-less, graffiti still faintly visible where someone had tried to scrub it away. I thought about how Jordan and I used to make up stories about where the statue had come from, how we'd pretend it was guarding secrets.

"Fine," I said. "But I got you something."

I pulled the cable from my backpack, held it out. The one we'd used to share internet because their connection sucked.

Jordan stared at it like I'd handed them a grenade.

"You kept it?"

"Yeah."

They took it, fingers brushing mine, and for a second everything was last summer again, easy and familiar. Then they pulled away.

"Thanks," Jordan said softly. "I'll keep it. For... memories."

"Whatever." I turned to go, then stopped. "The sphinx never did answer us."

"What?"

"Nothing."

I walked away, but not running this time. Just walking. Leaving behind the dead snake, the riddle, and someone I used to know, toward something I hadn't figured out yet. Maybe that was the whole point—growing up meant not having all the answers, just learning to live with the questions.