The Riddle in Your Palm

Sarah lay in bed watching him sleep, the blue light of her iPhone illuminating the space between them like a cold moon. Three years together, and she still couldn't solve him — he was a sphinx wrapped in cotton sheets, giving away nothing in his surrender.

Mark had left his phone charging across the room, its black cable snaking away like a lifeline he'd learned to live without. She thought about checking it. She didn't. Some riddles you don't want answered.

His hands, those large capable hands, rested palm-up on the duvet, vulnerable in dreams. He'd held her with those hands when his mother died, when she lost her job, when they stood in the wreckage of what they thought their lives would be. But lately, those same hands had been holding something back.

"You're bearing the weight of nothing," she'd told him last night, wine-loose and hurting. "At least tell me what it costs."

He'd looked at her then, really looked at her, with eyes that held whole landscapes she'd never been allowed to visit. Then he'd turned away, and the silence between them had grown teeth.

Her iPhone buzzed — a work email, someone else's emergency. She ignored it. The screen lit up again, this time with a photo notification: Mark's brother, tagged in something from weeks ago. Her thumb hovered.

The sphinx's riddle wasn't what he was hiding. It was what she was afraid to find.

She set the phone on the nightstand. Some answers would destroy everything. Some kingdoms you rule by not knowing their borders. She curled into his warmth, his hand finding hers in sleep, palm to palm, and let the mystery be enough.

For now.