Love Game

Elena adjusted the brim of her father's Panama hat, the sweat pooling underneath despite the indoor climate control. The padel court smelled of rubber and desperation.

"You're holding the racquet like it's a weapon," Marco said from across the net.

"It is." She swung, the ball caroming off the wall with satisfying violence.

Three months ago, she'd found the earring. Not hers. Strawberry blonde hair wrapped around his shower drain, unmistakable against her own dark waves. The other woman had hair like sunlight—something Elena had never possessed.

Marco retrieved the ball, his movements fluid and predatory. A bull in the arena, unaware the matador had already drawn blood. "Remember when we played in Barcelona?"

"Before." The word hung between them, heavier than the ball.

"Before what?" He asked, though she knew he knew.

"Before everything changed."

Her phone buzzed in the bag—a message from her sister about their mother's declining health, their father's increasing confusion. The hat had been his—funeral was next week. Grief layered upon grief like sedimentary rock, each strata pressing down until she could barely breathe.

"Elena."

"Serve."

The ball came fast. She returned it harder.

"Is this about us?" Marco stood at the net now, not playing anymore. "Because we can talk about—"

"No, we can't." She ripped the hat off, her own hair plastered to her skull. "That's the problem. We never talked. We just played."

"I don't want to lose you."

"You already did."

She walked to the bench, collected her things. The other woman's name was Sofia. Elena knew everything—where they met, what they drank, how Marco described his wife as "difficult." Like a bull he couldn't tame.

Outside, the Spanish heat hit her like a physical blow. Women in sundresses. Men in linen. Life continuing, indifferent to her unraveling. She'd get on a plane tomorrow, attend a funeral, maybe never come back.

"Wait." Marco's hand on her arm. "I'll end it. I swear."

His eyes were sincere. He meant it in this moment. But fidelity, like love, wasn't a moment. It was a thousand moments strung together, a series of choices made when no one was watching.

"You already ended it," she said. "You just didn't realize until now what you'd lose."

She walked away, the Panama hat in her hand, her hair wild in the wind. For the first time in years, she didn't know what came next.

She also didn't care.