The Riddle in the Glass

Maya stood before the gallery's floor-to-ceiling windows, watching the **water** sheet down the glass like tears she couldn't cry anymore. The storm outside mirrored nothing she felt inside—she was hollowed out, emptied by three years of loving a man who treated her heart like a riddle without an answer.

"You're overthinking again," Lucas had said that morning, as if her capacity for reflection were a flaw he'd patiently endure. He was a **sphinx** in human form, offering fragments of himself like cryptic clues: a childhood photograph, a midnight confession, moments of devastating tenderness that kept her guessing, kept her hoping that someday she'd solve him.

"You think I'm chasing something that doesn't exist," she'd replied, already knowing she was right.

Now, at the opening where Lucas stood surrounded by admirers—his exhibition of minimalist sculptures receiving exactly the reverence he cultivated—Maya remembered their first date. He'd ordered for both of them at the tapas place, selected the wine, chosen the music. Charming then. Controlling now. A **bull** in the delicate china shop of her emotional landscape, charging through boundaries she was too exhausted to rebuild.

Her phone buzzed. *Come home. We can fix this.*

She watched him across the room, laughing at something a woman in a rust-colored dress said. The woman handed Lucas an **orange** from the catering display—he peeled it with practiced hands, the scent sharp and bright, cutting through the gallery's pretension. He offered the woman a segment. A stranger. Meanwhile, the woman who'd warmed his bed for three years stood by the window, invisible.

Then she saw it: a small **cat** darting between the guests' legs, weaving through sculptures worth more than most people's souls. It paused at Maya's feet, looked up with yellow eyes that seemed to ask: *Why are you still here?*

The cat wound around her ankles once, then disappeared through a door marked STAFF ONLY.

Maya took out her phone, typed four words: *I'm done solving you.*

She didn't wait for his response. She pushed through the heavy doors into the rain, letting the **water** finally blur her vision, letting herself feel something—relief, sharp and clean as an orange peel, as the sphinx's riddle went unanswered forever.