Questions the Pool Refused to Answer

The padel court echoed with the rhythm of a conversation neither of them was actually having. Elena's racket cut through the humid evening air, sending the ball skimming past Marcus's shoulder. He didn't flinch. He never flinched anymore—not since the layoffs, not since the night she'd pressed her keycard against his hotel room door and walked away.

"You're holding back," she said, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.

Marcus shrugged, a fluid motion like water finding its level. "Playing it safe. That's the corporate strategy now, isn't it?"

Beyond the court's glass walls, the club's pool stretched dark and motionless. At its far end, a stone sphinx crouched beside the decorative waterfall—another relic from the previous owner's eccentric phase. The sphinx's chipped face wore the same inscrutable expression it had worn for three years, since the night Marcus and Elena had sat on its plinth, drunk on tequila and the terrifying electricity of almost crossing a line.

They'd posed riddles to each other then. playful questions that were actually tests: *What would you do if you weren't afraid? Who do you want to be when this is all over?*

Now the only riddle was why they kept showing up here, week after month, pretending their lives hadn't branched into completely different rivers. Elena had married someone safe—someone who didn't look at her like she was both the question and the answer. Marcus had taken the promotion in Chicago and come back anyway, claiming the new role required weekly presence at headquarters.

"Game point," she said, tossing the ball up. Her serve hit the corner perfectly.

Marcus returned it weakly. The ball dribbled into the net.

The sphinx watched them both, silent and unmoving, while water rushed behind it, drowning out everything they still weren't saying.