The Court at Sunset

The vitamin tablets rattled in her palm — D3, B-complex, whatever the wellness influencer had promised would make her feel less hollow. Elena dry-swallowed them, the bitter aftertaste matching the day.

"You're not even trying," Marcus said from across the padel court, sweat dripping down his temples. He was thirty-five going on fifty, like the rest of them. zombies in moisture-wicking fabric, moving through motions without memory of why.

Her iPhone buzzed in the bench's shade. Third Slack notification in as many minutes. She'd stopped checking two hours ago.

"I'm done," she said, letting her racket fall. The ball rolled away toward the fence, a small green surrender.

Marcus stepped closer, the corporate bravado slipping. "I heard about the reorg."

"Everyone will be fine except the people who won't." She walked toward the club's infinity pool, where water spilled endlessly into itself, that paradox of motion without progress. How much of her life had been that? Moving, flowing, arriving nowhere.

Marcus's hand found her shoulder, tentative. "I can put in a word."

The offer hung between them — transaction layered over something else, something that had been brewing since the holiday party, since the elevator rides, since she'd started noticing how he looked at her when he thought she wouldn't notice.

"I don't want you to save my job," she said, turning to face him. "I want you to tell me why you never asked me to get real drinks after work."

He laughed, startled and genuine. "I thought you were married to your career."

"I'm divorced from it, actually. Effectively as of an hour ago."

The sun bled orange across the water. Behind them, the padel court stood empty, that carefully measured rectangle where they'd pretended to play while everything else fell apart. His phone buzzed too, ignored.

"So," he said. "Drinks?"

"I have vitamins to take," she said, "and you have emails to ignore. But yes. Drinks."

The water kept falling, over and over, and for the first time in years, she didn't feel like she was drowning with it.