The Sphinx Knew Everything

Maya's freshman year was supposed to be glow-up season, but instead she was stuck in the cafeteria with spinach in her braces while her supposed best friend Priya laughed at her phone instead of helping.

"Your teeth," some sophomore whispered, not even trying to hide her grin. Maya wanted to disappear. She'd been trying to talk to Priya about their science project—the one on Egyptian mythology they'd been excited about since seventh grade—but Priya had been doomscrolling TikTok for twenty minutes straight.

The sphinx statue they'd built together sat on the lab table, its clay face halfway painted. Ancient riddles about truth and lies. Irony much?

"Sorry," Priya said finally, not sounding sorry at all. "Tyler just posted something hilarious."

Maya grabbed her tray. "Whatever. I have to go."

"Where?" Priya called, actually looking up.

"Dog walking," Maya lied. She didn't have a job, but she'd rather be anywhere than here.

Except she ended up at the park anyway, watching an old golden retriever chase tennis balls while some random guy threw them. The dog bounded over, tail wagging like its whole life depended on this moment of pure joy.

"That's Buster," the guy said. He looked like he was in college, which somehow made it less embarrassing that Maya was sitting alone on a bench looking like she'd been crying. "You want to throw?"

So she spent the next hour throwing tennis balls for a stranger's dog, somehow feeling more seen by this animal than by her best friend of three years.

The sphinx project was due Monday. Priya texted that night: u coming over to finish??

Maya stared at her phone. Spinach in her teeth. Priya laughing at someone else's joke. The way everything felt different now, like they were both pretending nothing had changed when everything had.

She thought about the sphinx's riddle: What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening? The answer was a person—changing, growing, eventually needing support.

Maybe that was the point. Maybe you weren't supposed to stay the same.

The dog's face flashed in her memory. Pure happiness. No awkwardness. No trying to be someone she wasn't.

Maya typed back: no. i'm good.

Then she called her mom to ask about signing up for dog walking jobs. Some doors close. Others open. The sphinx would've approved.