The Sphinx in Left Field

Leo adjusted his vitamin gummies - the orange ones gave him weird burps - and slumped against the chain-link fence. Another Tuesday of watching Jake Rodriguez crush batting practice while Leo existed in the general vicinity of baseball, tragically not ON the baseball team.

"You know," Leo muttered to himself, "if I took more vitamins, worked out, actually tried..." but the thought dissolved like his confidence whenever Jake did that thing with his hair.

Then Leo noticed IT: a concrete sphinx statue behind the backstop, chipped nose and all, parked like some ancient riddle machine dropped by accident. Who put a sphinx at a middle school field?

"Nice riddle, bro," Leo said, approaching it. "Got anything for me? Like, how to talk to girls? Or why Jake is perfect?"

The sphinx said nothing, being concrete.

"Yeah, same."

He sat in its shadow, pulling out his phone. Eleven new notifications. None from Tessa. She'd said "maybe" to the spring formal, which everyone knew meant "if something better doesn't happen."

"Wanna know what's stupid?" Leo told the sphinx. "I'm like, low-key jealous of Jake. And I hate myself for it. We've been friends since we were seven, but now it's like he's evolving into some jock Pokémon and I'm still... me."

"Who are you talking to?"

Leo jumped. Tessa stood there, her lacrosse stick slung over her shoulder like she carried it everywhere now.

"The sphinx," Leo said, because it was true. "It's a good listener."

Tessa sat down beside him. "That statue's been here forever. My sister says seniors paint it different colors before graduation. Last year it was rainbow." She nudged his shoulder. "You okay?"

"Fine. Why?"

"You're talking to a statue. And eating orange gummies like they're emotional support candy."

Leo laughed. "Vitamins. They're supposed to help me... I don't know, be better?"

"You're already good, Leo." Tessa's eyes did that thing where they actually looked at HIM, not through him. "Better than Jake, probably. He thinks 'humble' means posting inspirational quotes with photos of himself."

Leo's chest did something complicated. "You noticed?"

"I notice everything." Tessa stood up. "Hey, about the formal? The answer's yes. Not maybe."

Leo's brain short-circuited. "Really?"

"Yeah. But I'm not dancing to anything slow. I'm doing that jumping around thing people do when they're pretending not to care." She started walking away, then turned. "Also, the sphinx's riddle?"

She pointed at the graffiti scrawled across its base: BE YOURSELF, IT'S THE ONLY THING YOU CAN'T COPY.

"Whoa," Leo breathed.

"Whoa," Tessa agreed. "See you at practice tomorrow. You should come early. We can throw the ball around."

Leo sat there for a long time, sphinx-shadow stretching across the grass as the sun dipped. He fished out another vitamin gummy. Orange. Not so bad after all.