Riddle in Amber Light

The apartment smelled of stale takeout and the acrid sweetness of an orange peel decaying on the counter. Three weeks since Sarah left, and Maya still moved through her days like a zombie — automated, hollowed out, performing the motions of living without anyone behind the eyes.

Her iPhone lit up again, another notification from Sarah's number, still saved under 'Heart' in her contacts. Maya didn't read them anymore. They were riddles without answers, testing her resolve, wearing down the walls she'd built. Sphinx-like games Sarah had always played, even at the end.

'What walks on four legs in the morning,' Sarah had whispered that last night, fingers tracing Maya's spine, 'two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?'

Maya had pressed her face into the pillow. 'You and your fucking riddles, Sarah. We're not twenty anymore. Some things don't have answers.'

'Some things do,' Sarah said, and then she was gone, taking her half-empty closet and her collection of antique perfume bottles and leaving behind only the sphinx silence she'd always cultivated when challenged.

Now Maya picked up the orange from the counter, its skin already turning to something soft and compromised. She dug her thumbnail in and the scent exploded — sharp, bright, violently alive. For a moment she remembered the weekend in New Orleans when they'd bought these by the bag from a street vendor, the juice running down their chins, Sarah laughing through sticky fingers, orange-stained and uncharacteristically undone.

That was before the riddles. Before everything became a test Maya was failing.

The iPhone chimed again. A text this time, not a call. Maya's thumb hovered over the screen. She could become something else — someone who didn't need answers, who could live in the amber light of maybe. But that was a zombie existence too, wasn't it? Moving through the days waiting for the next riddle, the next test, forever solving and never solved.

She peeled the orange in one long strip, the bitter mist fogging her glasses. Ate it standing at the counter while the phone went dark again. Some riddles you don't solve, she thought finally. Some doors you close.

The apartment was quiet. Maya washed her hands, the smell of citrus clinging like a promise she intended to keep this time.