Games We Play

I'm standing at the padel court at 7 AM, water bottle sweating in my grip, the glass wall reflecting the pale morning light. She's late again—some patterns never break, even after three years of marriage and two of divorce. When Elena finally arrives, she's wearing that ridiculous fedora she bought in Barcelona, the one I used to call her "confidence hat" when she wore it to presentations she was secretly terrified of giving. Today it just looks like armor.

"Ready to get destroyed?" she asks, grinning that competitive grin that first made me fall for her in college, back when we were both swimming through grad school debt and existential uncertainty.

We play. Our bodies remember each other's movements—how she anticipates my backhand, how I know she'll fake left before smashing right. The ball bounces off the walls like accusations we never voiced aloud, instead swallowed in late-night arguments about whose career took precedence. We're not just playing padel; we're replaying our entire relationship in twelve-point increments.

After the third set, drenched in sweat that mingles oddly with tears I refuse to acknowledge, we sit on the bench sharing lukewarm water from plastic bottles. Beyond the court, the hotel pool shimmers—early swimmers cutting through turquoise lanes in that hypnotic rhythm I used to find soothing.

"I'm seeing someone," she says quietly, not meeting my eyes. The fedora tilts forward, casting shadows.

I watch the water instead. "Swimming again?" I ask, though I know she hasn't been in the water since the miscarriage that broke us both in different directions.

"No." She removes the hat, runs fingers through hair still damp from our match. "But I think I'm finally ready to try again. Maybe."

The padel game wasn't about winning. It was about remembering that some games end so others can begin. We walk toward the pool together, not as lovers anymore, but as survivors who finally stopped swimming against the current and learned to let the water carry us forward.