The Riddle in the Water

The papaya sat on the bedside table, already softening at the edges, its orange flesh perfuming the stagnant air of room 312. Maya hadn't touched it since the bellhop brought it yesterday—a welcome gift from the resort, he'd said, though she'd been anything but welcome since her arrival.

She found Elena at the pool exactly where she expected: floating on her back, eyes closed against the Mexican sun, surrounded by **palm** trees that cast long, spider-like shadows across the water. They'd been best friends once, before the email, before the promotion, before Maya learned that loyalty was negotiable in the architecture firm they'd built together.

"You came," Elena said, not opening her eyes as Maya approached the edge of the **pool**. Water lapped gently against the tiles.

"You invited me to your wedding. What was I supposed to do?"

Elena laughed, a sound Maya used to find contagious. Now it made her stomach knot. "It's not a wedding yet. Brad's still deciding."

Maya thought about the papaya in her room—how it looked perfect on the outside, inside already turning to mush. Like their friendship.

"Remember that trip to Egypt?" Elena asked suddenly. "The **sphinx** at sunset? You made me take a hundred photos of you with that riddle-expression. 'What walks on four legs in the morning,' you kept saying, like you'd invented the mystery."

"I was twenty-two," Maya said. "I thought everything was profound."

"You thought everything was about you." Elena opened her eyes then, and Maya saw it: the pity, the condescension, the way she'd looked at Maya across conference tables for the past six months without her recognizing it.

"The papaya is rotting," Maya said, because she needed to say something, and it was the truest thing in her life right now.

"What?"

"In my room. It's already turning. The outside looks fine, but inside—" Her voice cracked. "Inside, it's already gone."

Elena's face softened, and for a moment Maya thought maybe—maybe they could salvage something. Then Elena sighed, that disappointed sound she'd made when Maya presented a design she didn't like. "Maya. You always make everything so heavy."

Maya walked back to her room alone, past the **palm** trees that looked beautiful from a distance but were ragged up close, their dried fronds caught in the landscaping. She packed her bag. The papaya sat on the bedside table, its sweetness gone strange with age, its perfect exterior hiding what it had become all along.

She left without saying goodbye. Some riddles, she realized, weren't meant to be solved—only survived.