Riddle of the Departed

The sphinx statue watched me from across the terminal, its marble eyes accusatory even at three in the morning. I sat on the floor, back against the cold wall, my iPhone clutched in my hand like a prayer wheel I'd forgotten how to spin.

"You think he's coming back?" asked the woman mopping nearby, not unkindly.

I shook my head. The departure board still showed his flight as boarding, but that had updated two hours ago. He was gone. Our friend — the one I'd loved for seven years, the one I'd finally told everything — had chosen absence over awkwardness. Some people can't handle the weight of another person's truth.

My phone buzzed. Not him. Never him anymore. Just a notification: Rover app updated. Even the algorithm knew I'd be alone tonight.

The woman's golden retriever, a therapy dog wearing a vest that said PET ME, shuffled over and rested its chin on my knee. The simple, devastating weight of it. This creature would offer comfort to a stranger without asking what I'd done to drive him away. Without wondering if my confession had been too much, too soon, too real.

"What riddle are you solving?" the woman asked, following my gaze to the sphinx replica in the terminal's art installation.

I thought about the answer I'd given him in that coffee shop, the one that had made him pack his bags early. Not the truth about us — he'd already guessed that — but the truth about me. The things I'd done. The person I used to be.

"I'm still figuring out the question," I said.

The sphinx offered nothing. Its stone lips were sealed. But the dog tilted its head, waiting, and somehow that was answer enough. Some riddles don't have solutions. They just have witnesses.

I deleted his contact. Patted the dog's head. Watched the first light of dawn touch the marble face that had been watching travelers for centuries, gathering their stories in silence.

The terminal woke up around me. I stood, stretched, and walked toward baggage claim. Alone. But present.