Storm Over The Courts

From my balcony, I watched them play—strangers on the padel court below, moving in synchronized violence, their laughter carrying up to me like ash from a fire I couldn't quite remember starting. This was supposed to be our anniversary trip. Costa Rica, just like we'd planned during that first heady year when everything felt like a promise we could keep.

The cable connecting the television to the wall had been fraying when I arrived, a wound I kept meaning to address but couldn't bring myself to fix. Now the screen flickered and died, leaving me with my reflection and the ceiling fan's rhythmic interrogation. You would've fixed it immediately. You were always good at the practical things, at grounding us both when I threatened to drift.

Thunder rolled in from the ocean, heavy and inevitable. The couple below abandoned their game, gathering their gear as the first fat drops darkened the clay. The woman threw her head back, laughing as her partner pulled her toward shelter. I used to look at you like that, I thought. I used to be the one you pulled from the rain.

Lightning fractured the sky, a sudden revelation that turned the palm trees into silhouettes against themselves, everything briefly, violently illuminated. In that flash, I saw everything we'd been and everything we wouldn't be—all the futures we'd discarded when we chose to stop trying.

I pressed my hand against the glass, my palm leaving a mark that would fade by morning, like everything else. Like the shape you'd made in the bed beside me for three years, now gone to muscle memory and occasional dreams.

The storm broke open. Rain sheeted down, turning the padel court into a mirror reflecting nothing but its own drowning. I watched until the couple disappeared into the hotel lobby, until my own reflection became a ghost against the storm. Tomorrow I'd fix the cable. Tomorrow I'd check out. Tomorrow I'd learn how to occupy space without you. But tonight, I let myself be witness to how beautifully the world continues even when the part of it you loved is gone.