Storm Court

The rain started just as Elena's serve hit the net. She wiped water from her eyes, though some of it might have been tears. It had been three months since the miscarriage, and Mark still moved around her like a frightened cat—cautious, ready to bolt at any sudden movement.

They'd taken up padel on the doctor's orders. Something about shared activity, gentle reconnection. But there was nothing gentle about the way Mark smashed the ball against the glass wall, each impact echoing like accusation.

Lightning fractured the sky above the court—a sudden, violent crack that made them both flinch. The automatic lights flickered and died, leaving them in that gray twilight where everything looks like a memory.

"We don't have to do this," Elena said, leaning against her padel. The rubber grip was slippery with rain and sweat. "The pretending. That we're fine."

Mark's shoulders slumped. In the half-dark, he looked younger than his thirty-five years. "I don't know how to be anything else."

"You could start by not treating me like I'm made of glass. Like I'll break if you say the wrong thing."

"Elena—"

"No. Really." She stepped closer, rain plastering her hair to her cheeks. "I'm not the one who left the hospital that day. You're the one who couldn't look at me."

The silence stretched between them, heavier than the humidity. A stray cat—calico, scrappy—darted from under the bench where Mark had left his towel, paused to look at them with ancient, indifferent eyes, then disappeared into the shadows.

"I was afraid," Mark said finally. His voice cracked. "That if I touched you, if I let myself feel it, I'd never stop. That I'd drown in it."

"So you drowned us instead."

Another lightning strike, closer this time. The air smelled of ozone and wet concrete.

Mark dropped his racquet. "I can't fix it. I can't make it not have happened. But I'm here. I'm still here."

Elena watched him through the rain—this man she'd loved for seven years, this stranger who lived in her house. The water running down his face looked like grief, but she knew some of it was just rain.

"Pick up your racquet," she said. "Play to my backhand. Like you used to."

Mark hesitated, then bent to retrieve his padel. When he straightened, something in his face had changed. The careful distance was gone.

"Game on," he said.

Elena served into the storm. She missed, but it didn't matter. The rain kept falling, and for the first time in months, they were standing in it together.