The Riddle of Us

The apartment was too quiet after Maya left. Only Barnaby — her calico **cat**, who decided to stay with me — remained as a witness to the unraveling. He watched from the windowsill as I paced, **running** through every conversation we'd had in the final months, dissecting each sentence like a forensic analyst searching for the exact moment when love calcified into resentment.

My **iPhone** lit up at 2 AM. Maya's name on the screen triggered that Pavlovian hope — the same response that had kept me tethered to our dead relationship for six months after it had actually ended. But this time, it was just a photo she'd posted: the Great **Sphinx** of Giza at sunset, her silhouette against the ancient stone. She was finally taking the trip we'd planned together for our fifth anniversary, the one I'd canceled because of a project at work that, in retrospect, meant nothing.

I remembered how she used to call me her **bear** — gruff and protective, but secretly sentimental, hibernating through emotions until they became too large to ignore. Now that tenderness felt like a story about someone else.

The riddle wasn't what had gone wrong. The riddle was why I kept treating my own heart like something to be solved instead of felt. Barnaby jumped onto my chest, purring with an indifference that felt almost insulting. Outside, the city kept breathing, indifferent to the small deaths that happened behind closed windows.

I deleted the photo. Some monuments are best left in the past, even when they're made of nothing more than memory and regret.