The Sphinx's HDMI Cable

Maya's basement bedroom was her sanctuary, especially after the incident at lunch. The whole school knew about her panic attack during the presentation—thanks, Snapchat. Now she was curled up in her gaming chair, trying to lose herself in coding camp prep work.

"Yo, you coming out anytime?" her bestie Sasha called from the top of the stairs. "Your mom said dinner's ready."

"Not hungry," Maya muttered, even though her stomach was growling. She'd been down here for three hours, her laptop fan whining like a dying cat.

Sasha bounded down the stairs anyway, because that's what best friends do—they ignore your boundaries when you need them to. She dropped onto Maya's bed and immediately started fidgeting with the loose HDMI cable that connected Maya's monitor to her laptop.

"This cable's jacked again," Sasha said, giving it a wiggle. Maya's screen flickered and died.

"No no no—" Maya frantically reconnected it. "Don't touch my setup!"

"Chill, I fixed it." Sasha grabbed Maya's water bottle from the desk and took a swig. "Anyway, everyone feels like a fraud sometimes. Even Jordan TikTok-freaking-Davis failed their chem midterm today."

Maya snorted. "Jordan lives rent-free in your head, huh?"

"Shut up." Sasha grinned. "But seriously, remember Ms. Patel's class? She made us read that poem about the sphinx?"

"The riddle creature?"

"Yeah, exactly. The whole point was that the sphinx only let you pass if you knew yourself. That's literally what high school is—one giant sphinx situation asking 'What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?' and we're all out here like, 'I don't even know what I'm having for lunch.'"

Maya felt something loosen in her chest. "So we're all just... stumbling through the riddle?"

"Exactly. And nobody knows what they're doing." Sasha squeezed Maya's shoulder. "Now come upstairs before your mom comes down here and makes it weird."

Maya stood up, grabbed her water bottle, and actually smiled for the first time all day. Maybe she didn't need to have everything figured out yet. Maybe being a confused teenager was the whole point.