Shallow End

Elena found it on Tuesday morning, wedged between his running shoes and the gym bag he'd started using three months ago. His iPhone, unlocked, displaying a message that made her stomach drop: 'Padel at 7? Can't wait to see you again.'

She sat on the edge of the bathtub, the phone heavy in her hand. Three months of Mark's sudden transformation—swimming every morning before work, running half-marathons on weekends, joining that exclusive padel club downtown. She'd been proud of him. Concerned, even, when he came home exhausted, sometimes too tired for conversation, too sore for intimacy. 'This is what forty looks like, El,' he'd said, stretching his hamstrings in the living room while she watched from the couch. 'Either we get moving or we rot.'

She'd believed him. She'd even considered joining the gym herself, imagining them growing old together, active and vibrant, the kind of couple who vacationed in places where you could swim outdoors and run along beaches at sunset.

Now she scrolled through months of messages. The swim wasn't just exercise—it was where he met her. The running wasn't for health—it was where he cleared his schedule for phone calls. And padel, that trendy racquet sport he'd dragged her to watch once, complaining she didn't understand the strategy, was where it happened. Over and over.

'El?' Mark's voice from the hallway. 'You seen my phone?'

Elena stood up, her legs steady. She'd been swimming in uncertainty for months, running through conversations in her head, trying to padel her way back to something that no longer existed. But games had rules, and she was done playing.

'Your phone's in the toilet,' she said, walking past him toward the bedroom. 'Must have slipped out of your pocket while you were swimming.'

He stopped in the doorway. 'What?'

She began pulling her suitcase from the closet. 'You heard me.'