The Last Game

Sarah stood at the edge of the padel court, racket dangling from her hand like a dead thing. The fluorescent lights hummed above, casting everything in a clinical blue-white glow that made the sweat on Mark's forehead glisten as he packed his bag. Neither had spoken since the match ended — their third game of the night, though they'd both stopped trying somewhere in the second set.

"You're leaving, aren't you?" she said, and her voice sounded small in the cavernous space.

Mark didn't look up. He zipped his bag with deliberate precision, the sound sharp as paper tearing. "Yes."

On the bench between them sat half an orange, its segments exposed like a wound, growing brown at the edges where air had touched it. Sarah had peeled it during their break, pressing her thumb into the rind until the citrus scent filled the air between them. Now it sat there, a witness to things unsaid.

"When?"

"Tomorrow morning. Flight's at six."

Her iphone buzzed in her pocket — her sister, probably, or maybe her mother sensing something wrong across three hundred miles. Sarah ignored it, the vibration against her hip a persistent reminder of the world continuing to move while this one ended.

The facility's maintenance dog, an ancient golden retriever who slept through every match, lifted his head from his bed in the corner and regarded them with mild interest. Someone had thrown a tennis ball his way earlier, and he'd barely opened one eye. Now he watched, as if understanding that some losses didn't show up on a scoreboard.

"You could have told me," Sarah said. "Instead of dragging me here for one last game."

Mark finally looked at her, and she saw it then — the exhaustion, the way his eyes had been looking through her for months now. "I thought maybe if we played, something would come back. But it didn't."

The orange continued its slow oxidation on the bench between them.

"Goodbye, Mark," she said.

He nodded once, shouldered his bag, and walked toward the exit without looking back. Sarah stood alone in the fluorescent hum, the scent of citrus still in the air, her phone buzzing again, the old dog dropping his head back onto his paws. Outside, the summer night waited, indifferent and endless.