The Sphinx of Bethesda

Maya's cat—a hairless Sphinx named Gizmo—sat on her desk, judging me as I stared at her phone screen. Our three-year friend streak had been broken. Just like that.

"You're being bull-headed about this," Maya said, not looking up from her Switch. "He didn't mean to blow you off."

"Blew me off for THREE HOURS, Maya. We were supposed to grind ranks."

I fiddled with the HDMI cable that connected her console to the monitor, a nervous habit. The blue light from the screen made Maya's purple dyed bangs look almost black. We'd been friends since seventh grade, when she'd moved here and I'd complimented her Legend of Zelda backpack. Now juniors, sitting in her basement that smelled like vanilla candles and stale takis.

"He's going through stuff," Maya said. "You know how it is."

Actually, I didn't. My parents were still married, I wasn't failing algebra, and my biggest problem was whether my golden brown skin looked washed out in the gym lighting for tomorrow's basketball game. Meanwhile, Ethan—our third musketeer, the Peter to our MJ and Ned—had been ghosting us all week.

"What stuff?" I snapped. "What could possibly be more important than our Warzone squad?"

Maya finally paused her game and looked at me. Really looked at me, with those dark eyes that always seemed to know things before I did. She reached over and squeezed my hand. That's when I noticed—no streak, no notification from Ethan since Monday.

"His mom," she said softly. "She's... sick. Like, really sick."

The HDMI cable slipped from my fingers. All those angry texts I'd sent. All the squad @ messages he'd ignored. All the times I'd called him a flake this week.

"Why didn't he tell me?" My voice cracked. "Why didn't YOU tell me?"

"He didn't want you to look at him like that." Maya sighed. "Like he's made of glass. Like he might break."

Gizmo the Sphinx cat chose that moment to jump onto my lap, purring like a tiny engine. I buried my face in his wrinkly skin, feeling like the absolute worst friend in the history of friends.

"I've been such a bull," I mumbled into cat fur. "A literal bull in a china shop."

Maya's phone buzzed. A message from Ethan: *Can you come over? Mom's asleep and I need to get out of the house.*

We were already grabbing our jackets before I even realized we were moving. Because that's what friends do—they show up. They bring takis and bad jokes and they sit on your floor and play video games even when your world is falling apart.

"Hey," Maya said at the door, her hand on the knob. "At least you finally solved the riddle."

"What riddle?"

She smiled. "The one about what walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening. A person. Because sometimes you're crawling, sometimes you're standing, and sometimes—like right now—you need a third leg to hold you up."

I blinked. "You just used a sphinx riddle to explain emotional support?"

"Works every time."

We stepped into the October twilight, leaving behind the safe basement with its tangled cables and purple bangs and Sphinx cats. Real friendship wasn't about streaks or rank grinding or never fighting. It was about being there when things got messy. It was about letting yourself be held up when you couldn't stand alone.

And okay, fine—maybe sphinx riddles kind of did work every time.