Greens on Glass

The padel ball cracked against the glass wall, a sound like breaking trust. Marcus stood on the other side of the court, shirtless, sweating, grinning that same easy grin he'd worn since we were twenty-two. 'You're losing your edge, David,' he called out. 'Forty-five is hitting you harder than me.'I wiped my forehead with my wrist. The air in the indoor court tasted like rubber and old competition. We'd been playing padel every Tuesday for seven years. It was supposed to be our thing — friend time, no wives, no kids, no jobs. Just two men in a box hitting a ball back and forth until everything else fell away.Except everything else hadn't fallen away. It had crept in through the cracks like water, eroding the foundation Marcus never noticed was weakening.'My serve,' I said, tossing the ball up. It hit the mesh. We both watched it drop.'You okay?' Marcus asked, finally picking up on it. 'You've been off all month.'I stared at him. This was my friend. The guy who'd stood with me at my wedding, who'd held my hand when my mother died, who'd helped me move apartments four times. But he didn't know. He didn't know I hadn't slept properly in six weeks, that I'd started taking anti-anxiety medication, that I'd spent the previous evening sitting on my kitchen floor eating cold spinach from a Tupperware container because cooking felt like an insurmountable mountain.David,' Marcus said, stepping closer. 'Seriously. What's going on?'The padel court suddenly felt suffocatingly small. I could tell him. I could say: my marriage is crumbling, my career feels hollow, I don't know who I am anymore. I could say: I need help, Marcus. I need my friend.Instead, I said: 'Your backhand's gotten sloppy.'Marcus laughed, relieved. 'That's better. Let's play.'We played. I let him win. We made plans for next Tuesday, same time, same court. Another week of pretending, another week of silence, another week of eating spinach alone in a kitchen that no longer felt like mine. The ball kept hitting the glass. Someone always loses, even when they win.