The Riddle at Dinner

The restaurant was called The Sphinx, an affectation Marcus had found charming six months ago when their relationship still felt like an adventure rather than a series of increasingly desperate performances. Elena sat across from him, arranging the spinach on her plate with surgical precision, the wilting green leaves suddenly the most interesting thing in her world.

"You're being childish," Marcus said, not looking up from his phone. His thumbnail caught the light as he scrolled—buffed, aggressive, bullish in its perfection. "This is the biggest account of my career. You're not going to let your little existential crisis ruin it, are you?"

Elena lifted her wineglass. The restaurant's namesake loomed on the wall behind him—a reproduction of the Egyptian monument, its weathered face somehow judging her across three millennia. What riddle had she failed to solve? When had the correct answer shifted from following her ambition to recognizing she was slowly disappearing?

"I'm not being anything," she said quietly. "I'm just wondering when you stopped asking what I wanted."

Marcus laughed. The sound was practiced, confident, terrible. "Jesus, Elena. Not this again. You're unhappy because you're bored. I've told you—get a hobby. Exercise. You used to love pilates."

She stared at the spinach on her fork. That was the word, wasn't it? Spinach. What she'd forced herself to eat during the three months she'd starved herself before their wedding, smiling through the lightheadedness because Marcus liked her 'disciplined.' What she pretended to enjoy now because it signaled wellness and self-control and all the other performance-art aspects of being the kind of woman who deserved a man like him.

The waitress appeared—a girl who couldn't have been twenty, with tired eyes and a nametag that said ESPERANZA. "Everything okay here?"

Marcus's thumb hovered over his phone. "We're fine."

"Actually," Elena said, and her voice didn't sound like it belonged to her, "could you wrap the spinach? To go?"

Esperanza's eyebrows lifted. Just a fraction. But in that micro-expression, Elena saw recognition. Saw another woman who understood that sometimes the only act of rebellion available to you was a takeout box.

"You're not leaving," Marcus said, but the certainty was gone. Something fearful moved behind his eyes.

"I'm not asking for the riddle's answer anymore," she said, standing up. The sphinx watched from the wall. "I'm done trying to be what solves you."