The Riddle After Midnight

The baseball game droned on in the background, a meaningless exhibition between two last-place teams. Elena sat on the edge of the hotel bed, watching the cable flicker in and out—weather interference, or maybe something else entirely. Marcus stood by the window, smoking his third cigarette in an hour, back turned to her.

"You're like the fucking sphinx," she said quietly. "All riddles, no answers."

He exhaled smoke that curled toward the ceiling fan, stagnant and lazy. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I asked you a simple question and you've been dodging it for three days. Are you sleeping with her?"

Marcus turned. The neon sign outside painted his face in alternating red and blue. A bull, stubborn and full of shit—that's what her father would call him. That's what she'd called him, once, when they were fighting about something else, something that didn't matter like this did.

"You want the truth?" he asked. "The truth is—I don't know what I want."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I have."

The cable signal died completely, leaving them in blue-lit silence. Elena felt something crack open inside her chest, something that had been held together by denial and cheap wine and the belief that if she loved him enough, he would become something else.

"I saw the receipts," she said. "The hotel. Two Tuesdays in a row. You hate Tuesdays. You always have."

Marcus stubbed out his cigarette. The bed creaked as he sat beside her, not touching her. "She understands things you don't."

"Like what?"

"Like how sometimes you need someone who doesn't ask for everything."

The baseball announcers shouted something about a home run, but the screen remained frozen on a glitched frame of a player mid-swing. Elena realized she didn't care about the answer anymore. The question itself had been holding them together, and now that she'd asked it, there was nothing left.

"Pack your things," she said. "The cable's out anyway. Nothing left to watch here."

Marcus didn't move. Outside, rain began to fall on the city, washing away whatever either of them had believed about second chances.