The Riddle of Goodbye

Maya stood before the sphinx in the Metropolitan Museum, its limestone face worn smooth by centuries of anonymous hands reaching out to touch something eternal. She'd come here after the doctor's office, after the prescription for vitamin D supplements and the gentle suggestion that she might want to consider her mortality.

'Still figuring out the riddle?' Sarah's voice behind her. Seven years since their affair ended, and Maya still felt the echo of it in her spine like old weather.

'Just admiring the silence,' Maya said, turning. Sarah looked better than she had any right to—sharp blazer, that fox-red hair still catching the museum light, eyes that held too much knowledge about Maya's weakest moments. They'd been best friend once, lovers briefly, something unnameable and agonizing for years after.

'The sphinx asks a question,' Sarah said, stepping closer. 'Answer wrong, and you get destroyed. Answer right, and you become king. But nobody talks about what happens when you learn there was never a riddle at all.'

Maya thought about her vitamins, her empty apartment, the promotion she'd taken over Sarah. The silent erosion of a friendship that had once felt like the only thing that mattered. 'Maybe that's the riddle,' she said. 'Realizing the question doesn't matter anymore.'

Sarah's hand brushed hers, brief as electricity. 'I'm leaving New York. Teaching position in Chicago.'

'Congratulations.'

'You could visit.' The hesitation in Sarah's voice was something Maya could have built a religion around, once.

'Take care of yourself,' Maya said instead, and watched Sarah walk away toward the exit, her heels clicking against marble like a countdown.

The sphinx kept its eternal pose, offering no answers. Maya swallowed her vitamin pill dry and walked into the afternoon sun, wondering why some moments felt like both victory and defeat simultaneously, why the best decisions sometimes left you feeling like you'd answered a riddle you didn't remember being asked.