The Riddle of Us

The restaurant's centerpiece aquarium held three goldfish, orange and oblivious, circling their glass prison in endless loops. Elena watched them instead of looking at me.

"You're like the sphinx," she said finally, her voice low enough that the waiter couldn't hear. "All these riddles, all these secrets. But I'm done guessing."

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. For three years, I'd been a zombie in this relationship—present, breathing, but fundamentally somewhere else. Sleepwalking through dinners, anniversaries, conversations about the future. She'd ask what I was thinking, and I'd give her half-truths, fragments, anything but the whole mess of it.

"The thing about the sphinx," I managed, "is that it destroys itself when someone finally answers the riddle."

"So destroy yourself then," she said, and there was no malice in it, just exhaustion. "Or tell me the truth. Your choice."

The truth was that I loved her, but not enough. Not enough to change, not enough to be present, not enough to stop searching for something else—something I couldn't name but felt certain existed just beyond the perimeter of my life. I was like the fox that tears through the garden at dusk: hungry, wild, gone before anyone can quite register the disturbance. Some creatures aren't meant for domesticity.

She knew. She'd always known.

"I'm sorry," I said, and it was the first honest thing I'd said in months.

"Sorry doesn't fix anything." She signaled for the check. "The goldfish have better memories than we do. They just keep swimming the same circles and pretend they've never been here before."

I watched the three fish complete another revolution around their tiny universe. Tomorrow they'd do it again. They'd never know they were trapped.

I paid the bill. We left separately.Outside, the city was ending its day, lights flickering on like forgotten stars. I walked alone, and for the first time in years, I felt entirely awake.