The Sphinx on My Sofa

The party was already mid-cringe when Jayden dragged me into the bathroom. My best friend since third grade, hyperventilating over a text.

"Bro, I think I just humiliated myself," Jayden said, sliding down the tile wall. "I sent Kayla a meme and she left me on read for three hours."

"You're spiraling," I said, joining him on the floor. "She's probably just busy. Or her phone died. Or she's processing your epic sense of humor."

But Jayden's older sister's Sphinx cat—this ancient, wrinkly alien creature that looked like it had seen some stuff—pawed at the bathroom door. Mr. Wrinkles had escaped Kayla's room again. That cat was judgmental. It stared at us with those enormous ears like, *Really? This is your crisis?*

"Remember when you tried to palm-read me at that sleepover last year?" I asked, trying to distract him. "You told me I'd have three great loves and then accidentally poured soda all over my hand."

Jayden cracked a smile. "Your lifeline was literally washed away. But for real, what if she thinks I'm weird?"

"You ARE weird," I said. "She likes you because you're weird. You think she'd be texting you at 2 AM about conspiracy theories if she wanted some basic guy? Last week you two spent forty minutes debating whether hotdogs are sandwiches. She's not exactly looking for normal."

The Sphinx cat chose that moment to wail like a dying banshee. Seriously, why did this creature sound like a distressed infant?

"Okay," Jayden said, wiping his palms on his jeans. "You're right. I'm overthinking it."

"Always. Now let's go rescue Mr. Wrinkles before Kayla realizes her cat's gatecrashing the party."

We opened the door to find Kayla standing there, holding her phone up. She was grinning at the screen.

"You know," she said, "I was literally just showing my friend that meme you sent me. I was laughing so hard I couldn't even reply. My mom thought I was choking."

Jayden turned the shade of a stop sign. "Oh."

"Yeah, oh," Kayla said, and then: "You two look ridiculous sitting on the bathroom floor. Want to come watch TikToks and make fun of them?"

As we followed her down the hall, Jayden mouthed *thank you* at me. Some wingman I was—sitting on a bathroom floor with a judgmental hairless cat, watching my best friend nearly lose his mind over a girl who already liked him back.

Teenagers, man. We make everything way more complicated than it needs to be.