The Riddle of Us

At 2:17 AM, Sarah found Brian sitting on his kitchen floor, surrounded by orange peels like some strange offering to a god who'd stopped listening.

"You look like a zombie," she said, not unkindly. It was the fourth night this week he'd answered her texts at an hour that belonged to insomnia and regret.

Brian held up his phone. Screen glow illuminated the hollows under his eyes. "Just finished reviewing the Q3 projections. Again."

"You used to be my friend," Sarah said, leaning against the doorway. "Now you're just whoever they need you to be."

That was when she noticed it—taped to Brian's fridge, between a takeout menu and a photo of them graduating college, was a small sphinx figurine. Its stone face seemed to mock them both.

"What's with the cat?"

"My boss's philosophy." Brian laughed, a sound like breaking glass. "Be a sphinx. Ask better questions than anyone else. Never give straight answers."

Sarah peeled an orange, the citrus scent sharp enough to cut through the room's stale air. She remembered the summer they'd eaten these every morning on his fire escape, making plans that seemed obvious then. Now she sat on the floor beside him, pressed a wedge into his palm.

"What happened to us?" he asked, looking at the orange like it might solve everything.

"The sphinx's riddle," she said. "What walks on four legs, then two, then three? We used to know who we were. Then we grew up. Now we're just waiting for the third part."

Brian's phone buzzed. He didn't look.

"Your boss's sphinx," Sarah said, "forgot the most important thing. Riddles need answers."

They ate the rest of the orange in silence, seeds and all, and for the first time in months, Brian didn't check his email until sunrise.