The Sphinx's Secret DM

Maya's thumbs hovered over her iPhone screen, heart racing like she'd just finished three sets of padel. Her crush, Alex, had posted a story – him and his friends at the Egyptian exhibit, standing before the granite sphinx like they owned the place.

"Ugh, why am I like this?" Maya groaned, burying her face in her pillow. Her cat, Luna, blinked judgmentally from the windowsill.

"Don't look at me like that, Luna. I'm not being a creep. I'm just... gathering intel. Being thorough. Like, due diligence."

Luna yawned.

Maya's best friend, Ji-Hoon, would've called it what it was: low-key spying. But Maya preferred the term "digital reconnaissance." She needed to know if Alex was the kind of guy who made fun of museum exhibits, or if he actually appreciated ancient wisdom.

The sphinx had been her favorite exhibit since she was twelve. Something about those silent stone eyes, guarding riddles for millennia. It felt like being seventeen sometimes – trapped between being a kid and becoming something else, waiting for someone to ask the right questions so you could finally speak your truth.

Gym class the next day was basically torture. Mr. Harrison announced they're playing padel for the semester, and Maya's hand-eye coordination was approximately negative ten. While she was busy missing every ball, Alex and his friends laughed on the next court over.

"She's trying," she heard Alex say when someone made a joke at her expense. "It's actually kinda cute that she keeps trying."

Maya's face burned. Cute? Was that good or bad?

That afternoon, she noticed something on Alex's Instagram – a close-up of the sphinx's paw, with a caption about how sometimes the strongest things are the ones that don't speak.

Wait.

Maya's fingers flew across her screen. She found herself typing before she could overthink it.

"The riddle wasn't about strength," she DM'd him. "It was about becoming who you're meant to be. The sphinx asked 'What walks on four legs, then two, then three?' It's about growing up."

Three dots appeared immediately.

"I knew you'd get it," he replied. "I've seen you at the exhibit every weekend. You always look like you're having a conversation with it."

Maya stared at her phone. He'd noticed her? All this time she'd thought she was invisible, spying from the edges.

"Wanna go back this weekend?" Alex typed. "Together?"

Maya's hands were shaking. Luna purred, winding around her ankles.

"Yeah," Maya wrote back. "I'd like that."

Later that night, Maya caught her own reflection in the dark window – someone who was done watching from the sidelines. The sphinx had kept its secrets for 4,500 years, but Maya was done keeping hers.

Seventeen was hard. But she was starting to think she might figure out this riddle after all.