Riddles by the Infinity Pool

Marcus watched the cat leap from the cabana roof, landing silent as a secret near the edge of the infinity pool. It was the third time he'd seen it — sleek, black, watching them with eyes that seemed to know something he didn't.

"You're missing the game," Elena called from the padel court below, her racquet raised like a challenge. Her new partner, some investment banker from Zurich, laughed too easily at something she'd said.

Marcus turned back to his drink and the amber plastic bottle of vitamin D supplements on the table. The doctor had said his levels were critically low, something about office life and modern malaise. He swallowed one dry, thinking about how you could dose yourself with sunlight in pill form but still feel like you were living in the dark.

They'd come to Mykonos to fix things, or at least to pretend they weren't broken. Five days of luxury and意图 therapy. Instead, Elena had spent every morning on the padel court while Marcus sat by the pool, nursing drinks and existential dread.

The cat settled onto the neighboring chaise, watching him with what felt unnervingly like judgment.

"You too?" Marcus muttered. "She abandoned you for a sport with rules neither of us understand?"

The cat blinked, inscrutable as a sphinx.

That was the problem, really — the riddles without answers. When had they become strangers who happened to share a bed? When had her laughter started sounding like something she performed rather than felt?

Elena approached from the court, glistening with exertion and something like victory. "Dominik invited us to dinner. His wife makes this incredible—"

"I saw you with him," Marcus said quietly.

She froze. "What?"

"By the net. The way he looked at you. The way you didn't move away."

The silence stretched between them, taut and terrible. The cat watched, patient as ruin.

"We're just playing padel, Marcus. God, you're so —" She stopped herself. "You know what? Maybe Dominik was right. Maybe some couples just... drift."

"Is that what he said?"

"Does it matter?"

The cat stood, stretched, and padded away toward the resort's entrance, disappearing like all the things they used to know about each other.

Marcus swallowed another vitamin, tasting bitterness. Some supplements couldn't fix what was broken. Some riddles answered themselves, whether you wanted them to or not.