The Spy Who Couldn't Solve the Sphinx

Maya had perfected the art of the cafeteria spy. Every day at lunch, she'd position herself near the windows, phone angled like she was just scrolling, while actually watching His Royal Sphinxness himself—Leo, the senior who sat two tables away.

The guy was literally a sphinx. In AP English, he'd drop these cryptic comments about Kafka that made everyone's brain hurt, then vanish into his hoodie like some philosophical turtle. His Instagram? Empty. His Snapchat score? Frozen. Meanwhile, Maya had been lowkey stalking his socials since September, feeling like a total weirdo but unable to stop.

"You're being creepy," her best friend Jada said, sliding into the seat opposite her. "Just talk to him already."

"I can't just—" Maya started, then froze. Leo was walking toward their table. Actual Leo. In the flesh. Her heart did that embarrassing flutter thing.

"Hey," he said. Maya opened her mouth to respond, cool and confident, except—

"You have—" Leo made a gesture toward his own teeth.

The spinach. The freaking spinach from the school's questionable salad bar, currently camping out between her front teeth like a tiny green invader.

Maya's soul left her body. "Oh my god."

"Happens to the best of us," Leo said, and something about his expression wasn't sphinx-like anymore. It was just... nice. "Your analysis of The Metamorphosis yesterday was actually sick. Most people don't catch that stuff."

Then he was gone, vanishing back to his table like he'd never dropped this atomic bomb of compliment on her head.

Jada was losing it. "Did that just happen?"

Maya touched her teeth self-consciously. The sphinx had noticed her. Sure, she'd had spinach in her teeth, and sure, she'd been caught spying, but somehow, it was fine. Better than fine.

The spinach wasn't an embarrassment anymore—it was an opening. A weird, gross, absolutely perfect beginning.