The Riddle of Us

The bathroom floor was littered with enough hair to make a wig. I stared at the mirror, clutching the scissors like a weapon. Three inches gone. Just like that.

My best friend Jordan was gonna lose it. She'd been begging me for months to stop hiding behind my curtain of bangs. "You're literally pretty, Sam," she'd say, always with the exaggerated lingo. "Why are you in your flop era?"

Jordan was in her glow-up era, obviously. Fresh highlights every six weeks, carefully curated Instagram feed, basically the queen of North High's social hierarchy. Me? I was the sidekick. The silent hype man. The one who took the photos.

Until today.

The school library was basically our second home. We were working on the mythology project together—something about riddles and ancient mysteries. Jordan had claimed the computer while I manned the books. That's when I found it.

"The sphinx," I read, "devoured anyone who couldn't solve its riddle."

Jordan looked over my shoulder, her vanilla shampoo filling my nose. "That's literally us."

"What?"

"We're the sphinx, Sam. We've got this giant riddle between us, and neither of us knows what happens next." She pulled at her perfect hair, something she only did when she was nervous. "You're cutting me off, aren't you?"

"What? No—"

"You got a haircut." Her voice was quiet. Not Jordan-quiet. Actual quiet. "And you didn't tell me. We tell each other everything. That's the deal."

The air between us felt thick, like the moments before a storm. She wasn't mad about the hair. She was scared I was outgrowing her, finding new people, becoming someone she didn't recognize anymore.

"Jordan," I said. "I didn't tell you because I was scared you'd hate it. That you'd think I was trying too hard to be... someone else."

She looked at my forehead, exposed for the first time in three years. Then she smiled, really smiled, not her Instagram smile. "It's giving main character energy, honestly."

We sat there in the library, the sphinx staring back at us from the textbook, both realizing the same thing: growing up doesn't mean growing apart. Sometimes it just means finally showing your face.