The Social Sphinx

Maya's older sister Brianna ruled the social pyramid at Northwood High like she built it herself. Which was funny, considering Maya spent weekends crawling through attics pulling ethernet cable for their dad's tech company while Brianna spent six hours on her makeup before each party.

"You're basically an NPC," Brianna had told her that morning, applying lip gloss with surgical precision. "People like me are the main characters. You're just... background texture."

Maya hadn't bothered arguing. She had a cable installation at the old Henderson place and Brianna had a Sphinx-themed party to plan—because nothing said 'cool teenager' like ancient Egyptian riddles and forced conversation.

But something shifted when Tyler, the quiet skater boy, caught her reading mythology in the library during lunch.

"Sphinx riddles are messed up," he'd said, sliding into the chair across from her. "Like, why does everything have to be a test? Can't we just exist?"

Maya looked up from her book. "Because people are obsessed with categories. Pyramid schemes. Who's at the top, who's at the bottom. It's exhausting."

"Yeah." Tyler played with his skateboard. "Hey, are you going to Brianna's party?"

"Working." Maya motioned to her cable company shirt. "Why?"

"Because someone needs to bring actual personality." He grinned, and Maya felt something weird flutter in her chest. "Also, I heard you're secretly the one who fixes everyone's WiFi problems. You're like the school's tech deity, and Brianna doesn't even know."

That night, as Maya crawled through yet another cramped attic wrestling with tangled cables, her phone buzzed. Tyler had posted on Instagram—a photo of the two of them from lunch, captioned: *The real Sphinx knows riddles don't matter when you've got genuine connection.*

Her notifications exploded. People Maya had barely spoken to were messaging her: asking for WiFi help, commenting on the photo, suddenly treating her like... a main character.

Brianna texted too: *wth is happening*

Maya smiled in the dark, twisted cable still clutched in her hand. The pyramid was crumbling, not because someone knocked it down, but because people were finally climbing down from it together.

She texted Tyler back: *party friday?*