The Riddle of Goodbye

Elise found the sphinx moth on her windowsill at 3 AM, wings trembling like a breath held too long. She'd been running for hours—not from anything she could name, just the persistent itch under her skin that had returned the moment she saw Maya's engagement announcement on Facebook.

Maya had been the friend who understood silences. The one who'd held Elise's hair back when she drank too much cheap wine in college, who sat beside her in hospital waiting rooms, who never made her explain why she sometimes needed to drive nowhere at midnight. They'd promised to be each other's emergency contacts forever. Forever lasted eight years.

Now a moth with a death's-head pattern on its back watched her with unblinking eyes. Elise remembered how Maya used to collect moths, pressing them between wax paper until their wings shattered like dried flowers. She'd called them "jewels that come to us in darkness."

Elise's phone buzzed. A text from her mother: "Did you see?"

She didn't respond. Instead, she found herself walking down to the street, where a golden retriever stood beneath a streetlight, watching her with ancient eyes. No collar. No owner in sight. The dog approached slowly, tail tucked, and pressed its warm weight against her leg.

"You running too?" she whispered, sinking to her knees. The dog licked her face, tasting like rain and neglect.

They walked together until dawn, Elise and her sphinx-eyed companion, stepping over the cracks in sidewalks where she and Maya had once walked arm-in-arm. The sphinx moth had vanished by the time she returned, leaving only dust on the sill.

Some riddles, she realized, weren't meant to be solved. Some friendships didn't end with explosions or betrayals—they simply grew quiet, like moths forgetting how to fly. She'd been running from the truth that Maya hadn't abandoned her. She'd just grown past her, like a tree outgrowing its shadow.

The dog curled at the foot of her bed, breathing in rhythm with her own slowing heart. Tomorrow, she'd text Maya congratulations. Tomorrow, she'd call animal control. Tonight, she held onto the warmth of something that had chosen her, however briefly, and finally let herself sleep.