The Sphinx's Riddle

Elena found the hair on his blazer — long, red, unmistakably not hers. It clung to the charcoal wool like a question she wasn't ready to ask.

They were at the padel court, David serving with that easy athletic grace that had first drawn her in. The ball cracked against the glass wall, echoing her heartbeat. At forty-two, she thought she'd outgrown these games, these mysteries.

"Your form's off," David called, grinning. His fox-like features — sharp nose, clever eyes — had always made him seem too charming by half. "Distracted?"

A stray cat slunk along the perimeter fence, watching them with that insolent feline gaze that seemed to say: *You think you know what you're doing? You don't know anything.*

The sphinx had been his gift — a small bronze reproduction he'd brought back from Cairo. "For the woman who loves riddles," he'd said. She'd kept it on her desk, its winged lion body forever poised between question and answer. Now it felt like a taunt.

"David." Her voice cracked across the court. "Whose hair is this?"

He stopped. The ball rolled forgotten at his feet. For once, he didn't have an answer.

The cat yowled, suddenly, as if laughing at them both. Elena pressed the hair between her fingers — one tiny truth amid a lifetime of lies — and finally understood the sphinx's lesson: some riddles destroy you when you solve them.

She walked off the court alone, leaving him standing there with his secrets and his charm and his unanswered questions. Some games, she realized, you lose by winning.