The Sphinx at Sunrise

Mila's feet hit the pavement in rhythm—*left, right, breathe*—running the same route she'd taken every morning for three years. Since *him*.

The papaya sat on her kitchen counter, softened to perfection. It was *his* favorite. He'd eat it with lime juice and chili flakes, squinting against the early morning light like a sphinx, inscrutable and eternal, while she watched from across the table. That was their ritual. That was their marriage.

"You're running from it," Elena had told her yesterday over wine that was too expensive for a Tuesday. "He's been gone eight months, Mila. You're still running."

The *bull*—that's what his mother called him at the funeral. "Such a bullheaded man." She'd said it with love. Mila had nodded, swallowed the lump in her throat. He *was* stubborn. Proud. The way he'd refused treatment for three months, insisting the headaches were stress. The way he'd planned his own funeral while Mila sat beside him, helpless against his determination to face death on his terms.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. David. The architect she'd been seeing for three weeks. Sweet. Patient. Confused by her emotional walls.

She slowed to a walk, chest heaving in the dawn chill. The papaya would be overripe by now. Another thing she'd failed to attend to.

Her therapist said grief wasn't linear. That it would hit in waves. But this felt less like waves and more like erosion—the slow wearing down of herself, one morning run at a time, waiting for the day she'd wake up and not reach for the empty space beside her.

The sphinx had asked its riddle, and she still didn't know the answer.

Mila turned toward home. David had texted: *"Breakfast? I'll bring the coffee."*

She typed back: *"Yes. Come over."*

The papaya would taste better with company. Even if it wasn't the right company. Even if she was tired of riddles.

Running hadn't saved her. Maybe nothing would. But breakfast was a start.