The Riddle of Us

Maya stood by the gallery's floor-to-ceiling windows, watching rain streak down the glass like tears refusing to fall. The opening reception was in full swing—important people in expensive clothes saying important things about art they didn't understand. She should have been networking. Instead, she was watching him.

David moved through the crowd with the effortless grace of a **fox** who'd discovered the henhouse was left unlatched. Charming, dangerous, entirely too comfortable in territory he should have approached with caution. His new girlfriend clung to his arm—a sleek, polished thing who'd probably never had a bad hair day in her life. The **cat** who'd finally caught the canary.

They'd been together for three years when it ended. No dramatic explosion, just the slow erosion of trust like **water** dripping on stone—imperceptible until everything collapsed. David had always been full of riddles, questions without answers, truths he'd hide behind layers of irony and deflection. Living with him had felt like being interviewed by the **sphinx** every single day: solve the puzzle or get devoured.

She'd finally stopped trying to solve him.

Now their paths crossed again because the art world was small and ruthless. David caught her eye across the room and for a moment, the old **bull**shit of their connection resurfaced—that magnetic pull, the way they'd always been able to find each other in any crowded space. His expression flickered with something that looked like regret, or maybe just nostalgic lust.

Maya turned away, heading for the bar. The bartender poured her wine with sympathetic efficiency. She'd cried all the tears she was going to cry over David Rivers. Tonight, she'd just get through this evening without making a scene, without letting him see that some puzzles, once abandoned, haunted you forever.

Behind her, someone laughed. It sounded like freedom.