The Last Supper at Alexandria

The spinach was stuck between his teeth when he said he wanted a divorce. Sarah watched it there—a tiny green fragment—while he continued eating, oblivious to the metaphor unfolding before her.

They'd met three years ago at the padel club, both terrible at the sport but excellent at the after-game drinks. Ethan had been charming then, full of stories about his startup dreams. She'd been running from a dead-end marketing career, ready to believe in someone else's vision for once.

Now she was the one running—in the mornings, mostly, five miles along the river before he woke up. Physical exhaustion was easier than facing their conversations.

"It's the corporate pyramid," Ethan said, tapping his phone. "I can't climb it feeling this weighed down."

Sarah looked at him. At thirty-four, he still spoke like a business blog post. She'd financed the restaurant he'd dreamed of, waited tables while he found himself, listened through three pivots and one affair that they'd "worked past." Now his tech job was booming, and she was the dead weight.

"You're the sphinx," he continued. "All riddles, no answers."

Outside their Alexandria apartment, tourists were lining up to visit the actual Sphinx. But here, in their kitchen with its view of nothing remarkable, she finally had an answer.

Sarah stood up, cleared their plates—spinach, half-eaten bread, the detritus of a marriage—and walked to the bedroom. She packed in twenty minutes: clothes, her passport, the savings account statement he'd never bothered to check.

"Where will you go?" Ethan asked from the doorway, finally noticing the spinach in the mirror.

She didn't know. Somewhere she wouldn't have to solve riddles just to be loved. Somewhere the running wasn't away from something but toward it.

"Anywhere," she said. "Everywhere."