The Sphinx of Room 304

Maya's heart did that weird **lightning**-strike thing again every time Jake's locker slammed near hers. Not the dramatic movie kind with swelling music—the awkward, silent kind where you suddenly forget how to stand normally.

"You're staring again," whispered Lena, her phone already capturing evidence of Maya's social demise. "It's giving obsession."

"Shut up," Maya hissed, though her face burned hot anyway. "I'm not obsessed. I'm just... observant."

The real problem wasn't even Jake. It was the way her entire friend group had reshuffled itself overnight, like someone had dropped a metaphorical **goldfish** bowl and everyone was swimming for new territory. Lena and Chloe had ditched her for the volleyball crowd, and suddenly Maya was floating in this weird social limbo where she wasn't unpopular, exactly—just unassigned.

Which brought her to the **vitamin** incident.

Her mom had started leaving those gummy multivitamins on the counter with passive-aggressive notes about immune health, and somehow Jake had seen theunicorn-shaped bottle when Maya was desperately trying to hide it in her backpack during first period. He'd actually laughed—that genuine, crinkly-eyed one that made her stomach do something dangerously unhinged.

"Unicorns? Seriously?"

"They're strawberry," Maya had defended weakly, wanting to die immediately.

Now, three weeks later, she was hiding behind a biology textbook while her former best friends discussed a party that everyone was attending except her. The social landscape had become this inscrutable **sphinx** with a riddle she couldn't crack: how did everyone else know the rules when nobody had handed her a playbook?

"You gonna **bear** through the whole year like this, or are you actually gonna talk to him?" Lena asked, suddenly appearing beside her desk.

Maya blinked. "Since when do you care?"

Lena's face did something complicated. "Since I realized the volleyball crowd talks about literally nothing but knee braces and protein shakes. I miss our conversations. They had... range."

Maya's chest tightened. "So that's it? You got bored and crawled back?"

"I got humbled," Lena corrected. "Also, Jake's looking at you right now."

Maya's head snapped up. Jake wasn't looking at her. But he was definitely definitely sort of kind of maybe looking in her general direction.

"He's not—"

"Ask him about the vitamin gummies," Lena suggested, already walking away. "I dare you."

Maya's hands started sweating. The sphinx's riddle had changed: what happens when you stop watching from the sidelines and actually step onto the field?

She stood up. Her legs felt shaky and electric and terrified.

"Hey Jake," she called across the room. Her voice cracked. Perfect.

He turned. The whole room held its breath, suspended in that heartbeat before lightning strikes.

"Strawberry or orange?" she asked. "Because I need to know your opinion on something that actually matters."