The Riddle of Us

The cable snapped at 3 AM — a clean break, like the end of something that had been fraying for months. Elena rolled over in bed, reaching for Marcus, but found only cool sheets and the hollow where his body should have been.

She found him on the balcony of the resort hotel, leaning against the railing in that ridiculous straw hat he'd bought at the tourist trap yesterday. Below them, palm trees cut silhouettes against a moon that seemed too bright for the occasion.

"You're thinking about her again," Elena said. It wasn't a question.

Marcus didn't turn. "I'm thinking about the sphinx."

"The what?"

"The sphinx. You know — Oedipus. What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening." His voice caught. "I thought I knew the answer. I thought we were the answer."

Elena moved closer, close enough to smell the gin on his breath and the coconut sunscreen that still clung to his skin. She'd booked this trip to save them. Eight thousand dollars and five days in paradise, as if proximity could heal what intimacy had failed to preserve.

"The answer's a man," she said quietly. "A man through his life. That's the riddle."

"No." Marcus finally looked at her, and she saw it then — the thing that had been living between them like an unwanted roommate. "The answer is: whatever you become when the person who promised to know you decides they never did."

The cable dangled from the wall beside them, its copper core exposed to the salt air. Inside the room, the television flickered with static, then died.

"We can still fix this," Elena said, though she didn't believe it.

Marcus touched the brim of his hat, a gesture she'd once found charming. Now it seemed like rehearsal for someone else.

"Some riddles aren't meant to be solved," he said. "Some sphinxes don't let you pass."

She watched him walk away through the palm-lined courtyard, his silhouette merging with the shadows, and understood that the most terrible thing about endings is how often they arrive dressed as beginnings.