The Last Match

The ball hit the padel court with a hollow thud, bouncing back at me faster than I could track. Elena stood across the net, her expression unreadable as always—the sphinx of our marriage, guarding secrets I'd stopped trying to unravel years ago.

'You're distracted,' she said, smashing the winner into the corner.

'I'm tired.' It was half-true. The exhaustion went deeper than sleep could fix.

We'd come to this resort in Marbella to fix us. Or that's what she'd said. Three days of tennis, silence, and her meticulously organized vitamin supplements sorted into those little plastic compartments—Monday through Sunday, a ritual I found both endearing and infuriating in its precision.

That morning, I'd found a bottle of prenatal vitamins hidden in her cosmetic bag. We hadn't slept together in six months. We hadn't talked about trying in two years. The discovery sat in my chest like a stone, heavy and jagged.

'Are you going to tell me?' I asked, letting my racket fall to my side.

She didn't pretend to misunderstand. 'Tell you what?'

'The vitamins, Elena. The prenatals.'

Her face didn't change. That sphinx-like calm I'd once found mysterious now felt like a wall. 'I'm not pregnant.' She paused, and for the first time in years, I saw something crack in her composure. 'I stopped taking my birth control three months ago. And you haven't noticed. You haven't noticed anything.' She picked up her water bottle, her hand shaking slightly. 'I needed to see if you'd wake up. If you'd actually see me again.' She laughed bitterly. 'You didn't.'

The court felt too bright suddenly. The ocean beyond the fence glittered, indifferent. 'I thought we were just... stuck. In a rut.'

'We're not in a rut, Marcus. We're done.' She walked to the net, extending her hand. 'Good game, though.'

I shook it, her palm dry against mine. The sphinx had finally spoken, and the riddle's answer was the one thing I hadn't prepared myself to hear. On the bench, her vitamin organizer caught the light—Monday's compartment empty, Tuesday's full, all those days we'd been living side by side, already ghosts.