The Sphinx of Seventh Period

Maya's hair hit her shoulders for the first time since fourth grade, and honestly? It felt like breaking up with someone she never actually dated. The choppy layers her mom called "practical" felt more like a betrayal.

"You look so mature," her mom had said.

Maya felt exposed.

At school, Jace barely looked up from his phone when she dropped into her usual seat. "Hey."

"Hey?" She poked his arm. "That's it? I literally look like a completely different human."

He squinted, finally. "Oh yeah. Did you... get a trim?"

"A TRIM?"

"I'm kidding, chill." But his eyes already drifted back to his screen, to whatever universe existed there without her.

The sting hit weirdly specific — like a papercut in the same place you keep getting one.

They'd been best friends since the sphinx project in seventh grade, when Mr. Harrison made them build a model of the Egyptian monument and Jace spent three hours ranting about how riddles were literally the dumbest teaching method ever invented. Now he was in that annoying phase where being seen caring too hard was basically social suicide.

Her phone buzzed. Leni, the new girl from AP Bio, had sent a photo: a black cat with yellow eyes sitting on a porch railing.

Found him behind the 7-Eleven. He's been following me home for three days and I am absolutely not complaining.

Maya smiled. Leni didn't do that thing where everything had to be ironic or carefully unenthusiastic. She just liked stuff.

That night, Maya lay in bed staring at her hand, tracing the lines in her palm like she'd seen girls do in TikTok videos. What did they even think they were reading? Her phone lit up again — Leni sending cat photos. Her and Jace and the sphinx project and the version of herself who still had long hair felt like they belonged to different people entirely.

Some riddles, she realized, didn't have answers. They just had next chapters.

She typed back: I'm coming over. We need to discuss cat names immediately.

The reply came instantly: Finally. I was running out of dad jokes to make alone.

Outside her window, a black cat sat on the fence, watching. Maya waved. It flicked its tail and stayed, like maybe it'd decided she was worth the wait too.