The Sphinx of Room 304

Maya's **cat**, Luna, knocked over the stack of carefully curated outfits as if sensing the radiation waves of panic emanating from the closet. "Dude, you've been through seven already," Jordan said from where they sprawled across Maya's bed, scrolling through TikTok. "Just wear the oversized band tee. It's giving effortless cool."

The irony wasn't lost on Maya—Jordan, the effortlessly popular **friend** who'd somehow ended up at her house every Friday since seventh grade, coaching her through social situations that should've been second nature by now. But tonight was different. Tonight was Alex's party. The party. The one where everyone who mattered would be there, and the pressure to perform socially felt heavier than the weighted blanket Maya definitely needed right now.

"What if I wear this **hat**?" Maya held up the beret she'd bought impulsively from Depop. "Too much?"

"Too French," Jordan deadpanned. "Unless you're going for mysterious exchange student energy. Which, honestly, might work."

Maya laughed but kept searching. Her phone buzzed—group chat exploding about who was bringing what, who was supposedly hooking up with whom, the usual pre-party hype that made everything feel simultaneously monumentally important and completely trivial. Then her stomach dropped. The HDMI **cable**. She'd promised Alex she'd bring the gaming cable from her dad's setup because his PS5 kept disconnecting mid-Fortnite match. It was her in. Her contribution. Her way of being useful instead of just awkwardly standing by the snack table.

"Oh my god, the cable! I forgot to grab it from downstairs!"

"Chill," Jordan said, finally sitting up. "I'll get it. You finish having your identity crisis in peace."

When Jordan returned, cable in hand, they found Maya staring into her mirror with newfound determination. The band tee it was. Messy hair. No hat. Just Maya, version 4.0.

"You got this," Jordan said, and for once, Maya believed them.

The party turned out to be exactly what Maya expected—loud, overwhelming, her social battery draining faster than her phone at 2%—but also unexpectedly okay. She found herself in Alex's room, helping set up the PS5, when someone pointed at the poster above his bed. "Yo, is that an actual **sphinx** riddle?"

Alex grinned. "Nah, my mom's an archaeologist. Brought it back from Cairo. Want to hear something wild? The real sphinx wasn't about impossible riddles—it was about being brave enough to ask the right questions."

Maya thought about that all the way home, Luna greeting her with judgmental meows as she crept through the door. Sometimes the scariest part wasn't not knowing the answers—it was admitting you needed help finding them. Good thing she had Jordan for that.