Glass Walls

The rain sheeted against the padel court's glass walls, distorting the world beyond into smears of gray and green. Elena stood at the service line, paddle heavy in her hand, watching Marcus stretch his hamstrings on the opposite side of the net. They hadn't spoken in eight months—not since the night at Julia's wedding, three bottles of wine deep, when she'd finally told him what everyone else already knew.

"You still serve like you're trying to kill someone," Marcus called out, grinning that easy grin that had once made her forgive him everything.

"And you still return like you're afraid to get hurt."

Their paddles cracked against the ball, a sharp sound in the humid air. The game unfolded in a rhythm Elena's body remembered even as her mind resisted: the way Marcus anticipated her cross-court shots, how they moved in tandem toward the net, their practiced signals from a decade of friendship translating into muscle memory that refused to atrophy. Each point was a small betrayal, her body complicit with his despite everything.

The water dripping from the ceiling made the court slick. Elena's feet skidded, sending her sprawling onto the artificial grass. Marcus was at the net instantly, hand extended—a reflex from all the times he'd pulled her up from ski slopes and dance floors and her own shattered moments.

She stared at his hand. The wrist where he still wore the friendship bracelet she'd made him at summer camp, twenty years ago. The same hand that had signed the papers stripping her of the gallery co-ownership, citing "irreconcilable differences in artistic vision." The same hand that had texted her every day for three months afterward, as if nothing had happened.

"Elena."

"Don't."

"I was going to tell you. About the buyout offer. I just—I was trying to protect you from the stress until it was finalized."

She pulled herself up without his help. "You didn't protect me. You decided what I could handle. Again."

The ball bounced slowly between them, forgotten. The rain intensified, water streaming down the glass walls until Marcus was nothing more than a blur behind the liquid curtain. She could leave now. The score was tied, 4-4 in the third set. She could walk out and never play him again, let their friendship dissolve completely like sugar in cold water.

Instead, she picked up her paddle. "Break point. Serve."

Marcus hesitated, then tossed the ball up. As it arced toward him, Elena understood something she'd been avoiding for months: you don't stop loving someone just because they've shown you exactly who they are. You just stop pretending it's enough.

She smashed the ball through the liquid wall between them. The glass didn't shatter. But something else did.