The Sphinx and the Supplement

Jordan's legs burned as he rounded the track for the third lap, breath ragged in the September humidity. Cross-country tryouts. Again. Last year he'd barely made JV, and this year varsity felt about as likely as his dad admitting that maybe—just maybe—Jordan's tik-tok obsession wasn't rotting his brain.

"Pick it up, Martinez!" Coach Halloway barked from the sidelines, her voice cutting through his spiraling thoughts. "You're running like you've got weights in your shoes!"

A weight. That was exactly what it felt like. Except the weight wasn't in his shoes—it was the crushing pressure to prove everyone wrong. To prove that the kid who'd failed freshman English twice wasn't actually, you know, dumb.

The irony? He was *good* at English now. He'd spent the entire summer reading everything he could get his hands on—classic lit, poetry, weird historical biographies. But nobody knew that. To them, he was still just the slacker who'd gotten left back.

After practice, Jordan collapsed onto the grass, chest heaving. Maya, the senior captain, dropped beside him and tossed him a water bottle. "You're getting faster, Martinez. But you've gotta stop overthinking it."

"Easy for you to say," Jordan groaned, sitting up. "You're not the one everyone's waiting to fail again."

"Uh, have you met my dad?" Maya's laugh was dry. "The man literally asked me this morning if I'd considered a 'more practical' backup plan than journalism. He called it my 'sphinx phase.'"

"Your sphinx phase?"

"Yeah, like the riddle. Because apparently I'm 'full of mysteries and impossible questions.' Parents, am I right?"

Jordan snorted. Maya's dad was a piece of work—a literal venture capitalist who once asked Jordan if he wanted to 'pivot' his life trajectory at a dinner party. The man had the social awareness of a **bull** in a china shop, and approximately the same amount of chill.

"Look," Maya said, suddenly serious. "My mom's a nutritionist, right? And she noticed you've been looking wiped after every practice lately. Like, *really* wiped. Have you ever gotten your iron levels checked?"

Jordan blinked. "What?"

"Iron deficiency. It's super common, especially for guys our age who are running a lot. My mom can spot it from across a parking lot—you've got the dark circles, the fatigue, the whole deal." She dug through her bag and pulled out a small bottle. "Try these. They're not, like, a magic pill or whatever, but if you're low, you'll notice a difference in like a week."

Jordan stared at the bottle. **Vitamin** supplements. Because of course the solution to his existential crisis might just be... nutrients?

"Won't this make me, I don't know, *extra* healthy?" he asked, only half-joking. "Like, suspiciously healthy?"

Maya rolled her eyes. "Just take them, Martinez. And if you don't PR at regionals, I'll personally reimburse you for the bottle."

Two weeks later, Jordan shattered his personal record by nearly thirty seconds. He didn't make varsity—that would have been too storybook perfect—but he made the top seven. And when Coach Halloway announced the roster, she actually smiled at him. A real smile, not the terrifying one she usually reserved for people who forgot their water bottles.

"Not bad, Martinez," she said. "Not bad at all."

That night, Jordan's dad asked about cross-country, and Jordan found himself explaining the whole thing—the tryouts, the vitamins, the way his legs didn't feel like lead anymore when he ran. His dad listened, actually *listened*, and for the first time in forever, Jordan didn't feel like the kid who'd failed English twice.

He felt like a runner. A runner who happened to be figuring it out, one lap at a time.

And maybe that was enough. For now.