The Sphinx at Center Court
The riddle had been living in Elena's palm for three months—a tiny sphinx tattooed between her thumb and index finger, its wings stretched over the lifeline that had always been too short.
"You're going to miss," Marco called from the other side of the padel court, grinning like he used to when we played baseball in high school, before everything got complicated. He was right. I hit the glass wall instead.
"Your form's terrible, SofĂa. Always was."
Some friend. He'd flown in from Barcelona last night, unannounced, carrying the weight of twelve years and a divorce I'd learned about through Instagram. We were thirty-five now, and the effortless rhythm of our friendship had curdled into something cautious, polite. We were both waiting for the other to mention what happened—that summer after graduation, the baseball scholarship I turned down, the letter he never sent.
The sphinx on Elena's hand had been my idea. A drunk decision at 2 AM after she told me about the promotion in London. "Ask the right questions," I'd slurred, pressing the stencil into her skin. Now she was leaving in a week, and I still hadn't asked.
Marco served. The ball smacked the corner I couldn't reach.
"Remember when you pitched that no-hitter?" he asked, suddenly soft. "Junior year. I caught for you. We didn't speak for three innings afterward. Just looked at each other like: what just happened?"
I looked at my palm—the lifeline Marco had traced with his finger the night after the game, under the bleachers, before he pulled away and said he wasn't ready. Before he met someone else. Before he married her. Before he didn't.
"Some sphinxes," I said, hitting the ball back finally, "don't have riddles. Just answers you're too afraid to hear."
Marco stopped moving. The ball rolled away.
"I'm staying," he said. "Indefinitely."
I missed the next shot. Deliberately.
"Good," I said. "Then you can tell me what the riddle was."
He laughed, and something in my chest unclenched. We played until our palms were blistered, until the questions stopped feeling like weapons. Until we were just friends again, holding riddles and answers both, uncertain which was which.