Riddles in the Spinach

I was running late, again. The sort of lateness that feels deliberate, like I'm secretly begging the universe to intervene. When I finally stumbled into the bistro, Elena was already seated, wearing that ridiculous straw hat she'd bought in Capri last spring—the one she claimed made her feel like 'a woman of leisure.'

'You've got spinach in your teeth,' she said by way of greeting, not bothering with hello.

I dabbed at my mouth with a linen napkin. 'And hello to you too, friend.'

'Eat your salad,' she said, gesturing at my untouched plate. 'Before the spinach goes warm and pathetic. Like us.'

We'd been friends for seven years, through her divorce and my promotion and my father's death and that terrible weekend in Tuscany when we almost crossed lines we'd spent a decade carefully not drawing. The sphinx had nothing on us—our riddles were recursive, endless, built from shared history and unstated things.

'So,' she said, swirling her wine. 'Are you going to tell me why you're really leaving the firm, or should I guess?'

'I told you. The new opportunity.'

'Bullshit.' She leaned forward, her eyes sharp. 'You're running. From what?'

I looked at my spinach, suddenly fascinating. 'From the moment when I realized I'd built exactly the life everyone else wanted for me.'

The silence stretched, comfortable and terrifying all at once. Outside, rain began to fall against the bistro's windows.

'So what now?' she asked softly. 'You just... disappear?'

I reached across the table and took her hand. 'I'm asking you to come with me.'

The sphinx's riddle answered itself: not in leaving or staying, but in who you choose beside you when the ground finally gives way.