Sphinx at the Kitchen Table

She sat across from me in the predawn light, her face unreadable as ever. A sphinx in sweatpants, guarding whatever secrets still lived between us. I peeled an orange, the citrus scent sharp against the stale coffee smell of our mornings together—or what passed for togetherness these days.

My iPhone buzzed on the table, another slack notification from a job I'd stopped caring about three years ago. I didn't pick it up. Instead, I watched her watch me, waiting for something to break. But nothing did.

"You're like a zombie now," she'd said last night. Not angry, just... observational. "You died in that apartment and you haven't noticed."

The words had lodged somewhere between my ribs, sharp and persistent. Because she wasn't wrong. I moved through my days on autopilot—subway, office, subway, couch. The orange in my hands was the first thing I'd really felt in months, its oils stinging a small cut on my thumb I hadn't noticed until now.

Outside, the city was waking up. Millions of people, millions of stories, and here I was, 34 years old and unable to remember the last time I'd felt something true.

Her phone chimed too. She glanced at it, then back at me. The question hung between us, sphinx-like and ancient: are we done here?

"I think," I said, finally, "I need to figure out how to be alive again."

She nodded once, stood, and began clearing the table. The orange skin still sat between us, vibrant against the gray of everything we'd become.