The Social Sphinx Riddle

Maya stared at the cafeteria mystery like it was some ancient Egyptian sphinx guarding secrets of the universe. The question wasn't what riddle it posed, but whether Jordan would actually sit at her table today.

Her phone buzzed. *Cable's out again, WiFi is 💀* – her group chat blew up with complaints. The school's ancient internet infrastructure had finally given up the ghost during lunch, leaving everyone actually having to, like, talk to each other face-to-face. The horror.

Maya's heart did that embarrassing flutter thing whenever Jordan walked past. Today, Jordan was heading straight for her table. This was it. The moment she'd been lowkey stressing about since September.

"Hey," Jordan said, sliding into the seat across from her. "What's with everyone looking like their WiFi died?"

"It literally did," Maya managed, proud her voice didn't crack. "The whole campus is offline. It's basically the apocalypse."

Jordan laughed, and Maya felt it in her chest. Then something caught Jordan's eye.

"You have a little..." Jordan gestured to their own smile.

Maya's stomach dropped. She grabbed her phone camera, flipped to selfie mode, and there it was – a giant piece of spinach from lunch wedged between her front teeth. She'd been talking to her crush with green-tinged dental disaster on full display.

"That's been there the whole time, hasn't it?" Maya groaned, wanting to disappear into the cafeteria floor.

"Since homeroom," Jordan grinned, not even trying to hide it. "I was gonna say something, but it was kinda cute."

Maya's face burned. "Cute? It looks like I've been eating a salad mid-sentence."

"That's exactly why I didn't want to interrupt," Jordan said. "Besides, everyone's too busy freaking out about the WiFi apocalypse to notice anything else."

Maya stared at them, then started laughing too. Maybe the sphinx's riddle wasn't so complicated after all – sometimes the most terrifying things turned out to be literally nothing.

"So," Jordan said, "since we're both stuck here without WiFi... want to hang out after school?"

The spinach incident might've been embarrassing, but sometimes the worst moments become the best stories. Maya smiled – carefully checking her teeth first – and said yes.