Riddles in the Afternoon

She swallowed the vitamin D capsule with lukewarm coffee, the same way she'd swallowed every disappointment in their seven years together. A daily ritual of optimism she no longer believed in.

The cat—Barnaby, a rescue with one ear and an attitude problem—sat by the window watching rain streak down the glass. He'd been Markus's idea, something about needing responsibility to ground them. Now he was just another living thing counting on her to show up.

Her phone buzzed. Another run canceled. "Baby, the client meeting ran long, can we do dinner instead?" She stared at the text until the letters blurred. This was the third time this week. The running had started as their thing—Sunday mornings, side by side, breath syncing in rhythm. Now she laced up her shoes alone, pounding pavement until her lungs burned, trying to outrun the question she couldn't quite form.

That was Markus's gift, wasn't it? He made her feel like she was missing something obvious, like she was standing before the sphinx, clueless while everyone else understood the riddle. Their friends adored him—charming, successful, always the one making plans. She'd learned to laugh at the right moments, to ignore how his gaze sometimes drifted over her shoulder like he was expecting someone better to walk in.

Barnaby meowed, demanding his dinner with the entitlement of someone who knew he was the only honest creature in the apartment.

"You and me both, buddy," she said, pouring the kibble.

The bottle of vitamins on the counter caught the afternoon light. She remembered the fight when she'd thrown them across the room—fragile orange plastic scattering everywhere like shrapnel. "You're always trying to fix yourself," he'd said, not unkindly. "Maybe you're just not enough as is."

She'd cleaned up the mess. She always did.

Her fingers hovered over her phone. Instead of replying to Markus, she opened a new message to her sister: "Can I crash on your couch tonight?"

Barnaby wound around her ankles, purring. For the first time in years, something felt like enough.