Riddle in the Water

The tank glowed against the wall, its silent inhabitants swimming in endless loops. Sarah watched the goldfish—orange and white—dart between plastic castles, its three-second memory a mercy she envied.

"You're doing it again," Marcus said, not looking up from his menu. "Disappearing."

She pressed her palm against the cool glass, feeling the vibration of the filter. "Just thinking."

"About what?"

"About how we're all just swimming in circles, pretending we're going somewhere."

Marcus sighed, the sound heavy in the upscale restaurant. They'd been here three hours. The check had come twenty minutes ago.

This was their fourth date. Maybe fifth. She kept losing count, which felt significant somehow.

"My mother used to read palms," Sarah said suddenly. "At parties, after too much wine. She'd trace the lines on people's hands and tell them things they already knew but needed to hear from someone else."

Marcus studied his own hand—long fingers, a faded callus from his guitar. "What would she say about mine?"

She reached across the table without thinking, her fingers tracing his life line. "That you're afraid."

His skin was warm. His pulse jumped beneath her touch.

"Aren't you?" he asked quietly.

"Terrified." She didn't pull away. "She told me once that the sphinx wasn't guarding treasure. She was guarding the truth that some questions destroy you when you answer them."

The goldfish surfaced, breaking the water's surface with a tiny ripple.

"What's your question?" Marcus asked.

Sarah looked at the man she'd been sleeping with for three weeks, whose last name she'd had to Google after their first night together. Who knew she took her coffee with cream, who called her when he couldn't sleep, who had yet to ask why she never talked about her job, her family, her life before.

"Whether this," she gestured between them, "is the beginning or the end."

Marcus covered her hand with his, pressing her palm flat against the table. "Maybe," he said, "it's both."