The Sphinx of Sixth Period

Maya stared at Leo across the cafeteria, nursing her lukewarm papaya juice like it was the only interesting thing in her tragic excuse for a lunch break. Leo — the Sphinx of sophomore year — sat at his usual table, surrounded by his pyramid of admirers. The guy didn't speak more than three sentences per week, yet somehow half the school wanted to crack him open like a fortune cookie and see what spilled out.

"You're doing it again," said Priya, sliding into the seat opposite her and stealing a fry. "The staring thing. It's getting creepy, bestie."

"I am not creepy," Maya protested, though the heat climbing up her neck betrayed her. "I'm conducting observational research. There's a difference."

"Mhm. And that's why you've been sketching his profile in your margins since September?"

Maya slammed her notebook shut. Priya's cat, Kevin, would have made a more subtle wingman.

The real problem wasn't even Leo — okay, Leo was absolutely the problem, but the bigger problem was that Maya had agreed to help set up for the spring dance, and Leo had signed up too, and now she had to spend three hours in the same room with the human equivalent of a dial-up modem trying to load a PDF.

"Hey," Leo said later, appearing beside her as she struggled to untangle a mess of audio cables behind the DJ booth. His voice was deeper than she expected, less Sphinx-monument and more actual human boy.

"Hey," Maya managed, immediately forgetting every cool thing she'd mentally rehearsed. Cool things like "sup" and "nice weather" and literally anything else.

"Need help?" He crouched down, his shoulder brushing hers, and suddenly the Sphinx wasn't mysterious anymore — he was just a guy with surprisingly nice hands and a coconut shampoo situation going on.

"These cables are a war crime," she blurted.

Leo laughed. It was bright and unexpected, like finding a twenty-dollar bill in a coat you haven't worn since middle school.

"Here." He reached in, fingers steady, and started separating the wires. "My uncle's a sound engineer. I've been untangling these since I was like, seven."

"Of course you have," Maya said, and something in her tone made him look up, really look at her, for the first time all year.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That you're full of surprises, Leo."

"Only for people who actually look," he said quietly, and the air between them shifted, charged with something new and terrifying and electric.

Maya's phone buzzed in her pocket — Priya, probably wondering if she'd died — but she didn't check it. Some mysteries, she realized, were better than answers. Some Sphinxes didn't need to be solved. Some things just got to unfold, one cable at a time.