The Riddle at Midnight

The office Betaling **pool** sat empty on Elena's desk, its returns uncollected. Three weeks of predicting which executives would be axed in the merger, and she'd won every time. The money didn't matter anymore. Not since Marcus. Not since the night everything changed.

She found him at the **padel** court behind their coworking space, hitting balls against the wall in the dark. Rain slicked his hair. He played like he was trying to break something.

"You're going to hurt yourself," she said.

He stopped, chest heaving. "Better than feeling nothing."

They'd ended up at her place, where her **cat** Bast watched with judgmental yellow eyes as they dismantled each other's carefully constructed defenses. Marcus kissed her like he was starving, like she was oxygen and he'd been underwater too long. And then he pulled away.

"I can't," he whispered. "I'm leaving. The merger—"

"Fuck the merger."

"It's not that." His voice cracked. "I accepted the package. I'm gone in two weeks."

Now Elena stood in her living room, staring at the **cable** Marcus had left behind—his charging cable, still coiled on her nightstand like a snake sleeping in the sun. Three years of working together, two years of wanting him, and it ended before it began.

Her phone buzzed. Unknown number. "Meet me at the sculpture garden. Midnight. Come alone."

She almost didn't go. But something pulled her—hope, or stupidity, or the way his absence felt like a physical wound.

The sculpture garden was closed, locked. Except for the emergency gate Marcus had jimmied open. He stood before the **sphinx** fountain, water trickling from the stone creature's unmoving lips into a dark pool.

"Riddles," he said, not turning around. "Always riddles with us."

"What are you doing here?"

"Leaving. Tomorrow." His hand gripped the fountain's edge. "I wanted to see you one more time."

"Then why'd you push me away?"

Marcus turned. His eyes reflected the moonlight, ancient and sad. "Because I wanted to stay. And that's the problem."

The **sphinx** behind him asked its silent question: what walks on four legs, then two, then three? The answer was man. The answer was change. The answer was time moving forward whether you wanted it to or not.

Elena stepped closer, close enough to smell rain and cedar and regret. "So what? We just—we just what? Pretend this didn't happen?"

"No." Marcus's voice dropped to something raw. "We remember. And maybe someday—"

"Someday what? Someday when timing isn't shit? Someday when we're not afraid?"

"Someday when we're brave enough."

He kissed her then. Not hungry this time. Not desperate. Just... a question. An answer. A promise deferred.

The charging cable still sits on her nightstand. Sometimes she touches it like a talisman. The sphinx keeps its secrets. The pool collects leaves. And somewhere, in another city, Marcus wakes up alone.