The Riddle of Goodbye

Chloe's sneakers hit the pavement at 5:47 AM, exactly when her iphone pinged with another text from Sarah: "Can we talk?" She kept running, breath ragged in the cold dawn air, refusing to look down. Six months of silence, and now this. Now, when Chloe finally remembered to take her vitamin D supplements — prescribed after she'd spent a winter too depressed to leave her apartment — now Sarah wanted to talk.

They'd been friends for twelve years. The kind who shared clothes, secrets, cycles of ambition and failure. But things had been unraveling long before the fight at Sarah's birthday dinner, the one where Chloe said something she couldn't take back about how Sarah's husband made everyone uncomfortable. Something true. Something that cost her the only person who knew her.

The path wound through the sculpture garden where Chloe stopped, hands on knees, heart hammering. The bronze sphinx stared back with its enigmatic smile. What riddle was she supposed to solve? How to forgive herself? How to forgive Sarah for choosing him?

Her iphone buzzed again. Sarah was calling.

Chloe answered, breathing hard. "You're running again, aren't you?" Sarah's voice sounded different — smaller somehow.

"Every morning. It keeps me from thinking."

"He left me," Sarah said. "Two months ago. I was too ashamed to tell anyone. Especially you."

The sphinx seemed to smile wider. Some riddles solved themselves when you stopped trying so hard.

"I'm sorry," Chloe said, and meant it. "Where are you?"

"Standing outside your building. I brought those vitamins you keep forgetting. And coffee."

Chloe turned around and started running back, faster this time. Some things were worth running toward.