The Court Where We Stopped Running

The fluorescent lights of the padel court hummed at 2 AM, a sound only the desperate or the sleepless would notice. Maria stood there, her dark hair plastered to her forehead with sweat, gripping the racquet like it was the only solid thing in a world that had gone liquid around her.

"You're not even trying," she said, and the words hit harder than any ball could.

I'd been running from everything for months — from the promotion I didn't want, from the conversations David and I kept postponing, from the mirror that showed me thinning hair and a mouth that had forgotten how to smile without effort. Somewhere along the way, I'd become what I'd always mocked: a zombie in a suit, moving through days on autopilot, consuming and excreting tasks without tasting any of them.

"Play," Maria demanded, hitting the ball toward me. It bounced once, twice.

"What's the point?"

"The point is you're forty and you forgot how to want things." She hit another ball. I didn't move. "Remember when we started this club? We said we'd never be those people who just went through the motions. We were wrong, Sarah. We became exactly them."

The ball kept bouncing, slower each time, until it rolled to a stop between us.

"Your husband," Maria said, "asked me if you're okay. You haven't told him you lost the baby, have you?"

The words hit me. I sank to the court's surface, the textured glass rough against my palms. My hair fell over my face — a curtain I could hide behind.

"I keep running," I whispered. "I think if I keep running, I won't have to stop and feel it."

Maria sat beside me, her shoulder warm against mine. "Stop running then. Feel it. The court will still be here tomorrow."

So I did. I sat there on the hard court with my friend in the dead of night, and finally let myself grieve what I'd lost, what I'd never had, and what I might still find if I stopped moving long enough to notice it was there.