The Sphinx at Sunridge Mall

The abandoned Sunridge Mall loomed like a concrete **pyramid** against the orange sunset, its cracked windows staring down at us like judgmental eyes. I'd been trying to work up the nerve to come here for weeks, ever since Jordan—the unofficial **sphinx** of Northwood High—had mentioned it during third period. Jordan didn't just know everyone's secrets; she collected them like trading cards, dispensing cryptic advice in that maddening riddle-style of hers. "What's broken but still speaks?" she'd asked me last week, when I was stressing about varsity tryouts. "A heart," she'd answered before I could guess. "Or a promise."

Now I was here with Marcus and Aisha, both of us acting tougher than we felt. Marcus found the gap in the fence where the security **cable** had snapped months ago. "You scared?" he asked, flashing that cocky grin that made half the sophomore class swoon. I wasn't about to admit that my stomach was doing backflips. "Please," I said, slipping through after them. "I've got more **bull** in me than your ex's excuses." Aisha snorted, but her hand found mine in the dim light.

Inside, the mall smelled like wet concrete and forgotten dreams. We found the fountain first, where someone had spray-painted an anatomically correct heart in fluorescent orange. "Prom 2024," Aisha read the faded letters. "People were so dramatic." We kept moving, past the hollowed-out stores with their ghosts of merchandise, until we reached the food court. That's where we saw it—Jordan, sitting cross-legged on a planter box, sketchbook in hand. She looked up, unsurprised. "What walks on four legs, then two, then three?" she asked casually. We all knew this one. "Us," I said, and she actually smiled. "Figure out the third part yet?" she countered. "That's the whole point of being seventeen."

We sat there while she drew us in charcoal—three friends suspended between childhood and whatever came next, while the sun painted everything orange through the broken skylight. Later, walking back through the fence, I realized what Jordan had really meant. We were all just temporary creatures learning to walk on however many legs we had left, trying not to fall while the world watched.