Goldfish at the Edge

The hotel pool was empty at 3 AM, which was exactly why Elena had come. She floated on her back, the water lapping at her ears like a whispered confession. Somewhere above, the sphinx of a problem she'd been avoiding for months—that perfect, terrible question Mark had asked over dinner—hovered in her mind like riddle waiting to be solved.

"Are you happy, El?"

She'd laughed it off then, like she laughed off everything. But here, in the crystalline quiet, the truth pressed against her chest like a weight.

Her phone buzzed on the patio chair. Mark again. Or maybe her mother. Or her boss, whose expectations had become a kind of mythology she couldn't escape—each deadline a new test, each project a labyrinth. She was tired of solving riddles she hadn't agreed to answer.

The family in room 304 had left their small dog on the balcony. It whined softly, that high-pitched sound of abandonment. Elena remembered the way Mark had looked at her last weekend, after she'd cancelled yet again to work late. Like she was already gone.

She'd won a goldfish at a carnival when she was seven. It died in three days. Her father had flushed it while she cried, explaining something about the circle of life. She'd learned then that even the things you win can be taken away. That happiness was something you carried, not something you found floating in a plastic bag.

The pool lights flickered. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed. Elena stood up, water streaming off her like she was being reborn. The sphinx's riddle didn't need an answer. It needed a new question.

She picked up her phone and typed: "I don't know. But I want to find out."

Then she deleted it and called him instead.