Severance Courts

The papaya sat on the kitchen counter, its yellow skin freckled with brown, like something already halfway to rotting. Elena had bought it three days ago when she still believed they could fix this.

"You're not even trying," Marcus said, his voice flat. He stood by the sliding glass door, padel racket in hand, watching her slice the fruit.

"I'm tired, Marcus. That's not the same thing."

He'd been obsessed with padel lately—the glass-walled court at their club, the thwack of the ball, the way the game demanded quick decisions. Quick was something Marcus used to be, before the promotion, before the long hours, before whatever this was had settled between them like sediment.

"Just one match," he said. "Please."

She followed him to the court, the heat already rising off the artificial turf. Their friends had stopped inviting them. Everyone knew. The way they moved around each other now—choreographed avoidance, like two bulls in a too-small pen, neither willing to yield ground but both too exhausted to charge.

The first point went to her. His return hit the net.

"Sorry," he said, but he didn't look sorry. He looked somewhere else, through her, past the glass walls to the pool beyond where water glittered almost painfully bright. Two years ago they'd stood in that pool at midnight, drunk on cheap champagne and the certainty that they'd figured something out other people hadn't.

Now the game was ugly. Long silences between points. Her forearm aching. The sound of the ball like accusations.

"Remember when we ate that papaya in Costa Rica?" she asked suddenly, between serves. The memory had surfaced unbidden—sweet, unfamiliar, the juice running down their chins, laughing at nothing.

Marcus hesitated, racket raised. "No."

"Of course you don't," she said, and hit the ball hard into the corner, where he couldn't reach it.

The match ended with the sun directly overhead, brutal and indifferent. They stood on opposite sides of the net, sweat pooling at the base of their spines, not touching.

"Water?" he asked finally.

"No," she said, already walking toward the exit. "I think I'm done."

The papaya would still be on the counter when she returned to pack her things. Some things, once opened, don't keep.