Sphinx on the Court

The padel ball cracked against the glass wall, echoing my own fractured thoughts. Tomas hadn't changed in twenty years—still the same quick grin, still devastatingly handsome even with silver threading through his beard. We'd been best friends once, inseparable as the cable that had connected our childhood dial-up modems, whispering secrets across phone lines while our parents slept downstairs.

'You're holding the racket like you're afraid of it,' he called out, sweat glistening on his forehead. 'Like that sphinx we saw in Egypt, remember? All riddles and no answers.'

I remembered. I remembered everything. The way he'd left without saying goodbye the morning after his father's funeral. The wedding invitation I'd received six months later—his, not mine. The unanswered messages that piled up like dead leaves in autumn.

His golden retriever, Buster, lay panting courtside, the same age as our friendship had been when it died. The dog watched us with ancient eyes, knowing things no animal should.

'Serve,' I said, instead of saying what I'd carried for two decades.

Tomas's wife had left him last month. Cancer. The email had been three sentences long, and I'd spent three weeks deciding whether to reply. When I finally did, he'd suggested padel. Just like old times.

The ball sailed long. Neither of us moved to retrieve it.

'I never knew why you stopped calling,' he said suddenly, the racket dangling from his hand. The sphinx riddle, finally asked.

'You never called me either,' I replied, and we both laughed—that terrible, recognition-laced laugh of men realizing how pride had cost them everything.

Buster lifted his head at the sound, thumping his tail against the court. The cable between us, severed so long ago, began to hum with something like electricity, something like forgiveness.

'Again?' Tomas asked, already reaching for another ball.

'Again,' I said, and meant it.