The Statue Knew Everything

Leo's beat-up fedora sat crooked on his head—a bad joke he refused to quit telling. Tonight, at Jessica Patterson's house party, it was his armor against the seventh circle of high school social hell.

"Nice hat, loser," called Ryan, the junior whose entire personality was varsity football and making freshmen question their existence. Classic bully behavior, though Leo knew better than to say that out loud. His so-called friend Marcus had ditched him five minutes after walking through the door, muttering something about finding Jake from the lacrosse team.

Leo escaped to the backyard, where a three-foot concrete **sphinx** sat beside the pool, its chipped paint staring mysteriously at the bobbing neon floats. He dropped onto the garden bench beside it, fedora pulled low.

"You and me both, buddy," he muttered.

"Talking to statues now?"

Leo looked up. Maya Chen, junior year's resident enigma, stood there with red Solo cup in hand. She was the kind of girl who sat alone at lunch reading philosophy books and somehow made it look like a choice instead of a sentence.

"He's a better listener than most people here," Leo said, then immediately wanted to melt into the Pattersons' expensive landscaping.

But Maya smiled, actually smiled, and sat beside him. "The sphinx asks a riddle before you pass. Everyone knows that."

"What's the riddle?"

"That's the thing." Her eyes got distant. "You have to figure out what you're running from."

The weight of it hit Leo like a physical thing. He was running from being nobody, from the friend who left him behind every time someone cooler showed up, from the version of himself that wore fedoras to parties and thought irony was a personality.

Ryan's laughter floated from inside the house. Marcus was probably laughing too.

"I think I know the answer," Leo said quietly.

Maya nodded, like he'd passed some test he didn't know he was taking. "The statue always knows. That's why people ignore it."

Inside, the bass thumped. But out here, under the Pattersons' fairy lights and the watchful stone eyes, something shifted. Leo took off his hat.

"Thanks," he said.

"Anytime, Fedora Boy." She stood up. "You coming?"

"Yeah," said Leo, leaving the sphinx behind, carrying something heavier than stone in his chest. "Yeah, I'm coming."