Drought at the Net

She'd been running from the conversation for three months. Literally running — six miles every morning before dawn, pavement hard beneath her sneakers, lungs burning in the cold air, earbuds in so she couldn't hear him ask what was wrong.

Now it was 7:14 PM and her iphone lay on the bench beside her padel racket, screen lighting up with another text from Julian. *Are you still at the club?*

Maria picked up her racket and stepped onto the court. David was already there, stretching his calves, pretending not to notice that his wife had barely spoken to him since February. They'd been playing padel together every Tuesday for seven years. Some couples had date nights. They had this — a blue court enclosed in glass, the thwack of balls against walls, the illusion that they were still teammates.

Her iphone buzzed again. She didn't look.

They played. David's serve went long. Maria's return clipped the net. The sound of the ball was like punctuation in a sentence they couldn't finish.

"You're distracted," he said, walking to the water fountain between games. He filled his paper cup, watched the water bubble and settle. "Running too much again?"

Maria wanted to tell him everything. About Julian. About how it had started running alongside her those early mornings, how he'd materialized like a fever dream, how she'd been drowning in loneliness for years and suddenly there was air. Instead she said: "Just tired."

Her iphone chimed from the bench. A third message. Then a fourth.

David's phone buzzed too. He pulled it from his pocket, frowned at the screen. The game forgotten.

"What?" Maria asked, heart hammering.

"Julian," David said, his voice strange. "He says you left your water bottle at his apartment this morning. He's asking if you want him to bring it to work tomorrow."

The glass walls of the court seemed to dissolve. Maria thought she might be sick. She thought she might cry. Instead she walked to the water fountain, pressed the button, watched the water spill into her cup. Cool and endless and completely indifferent.

"I'm not running anymore," she said, and let the cup overflow.