The Last Match Point

The lightning storm broke just as we reached match point, the sky cracking open with a violence that felt almost personal. Elena's back was to me, her padel racket loose at her side, waiting for my serve.

Three months of silence, and now this. A casual text—'come play, I miss the court'—as if our friendship hadn't hollowed out like a termite-ridden beam. I'd come because grief has a way of making you sentimental for things that were already dead.

'I named him Carlos,' she said without turning around. 'After your dad.'

I almost missed the serve. 'Who?'

'The goldfish. The one you gave me at my thirtieth. Remember? You said they were supposed to bring luck.' She faced me then, and I saw it: that flat, careful expression she'd worn at the funeral. 'He died last week. Lived five years. They said that was remarkable.'

'Remarkable,' I echoed. Rain began to fall, heavy and warm.

'I slept with Mark,' she said. 'Two weeks after you and Elena broke up.'

The ball slipped from my fingers. Lightning struck somewhere close—there, then gone, leaving afterimages burned into my vision.

'Why tell me now?'

'Because Carlos died,' she said simply. 'And I realized—I've been carrying this around like a pet I keep feeding, thinking it'll eventually grow into something else. But it won't.' She stepped toward the net. 'I'm sorry, Diego. Not that it happened. That I let it matter more than you.'

The rain soaked us both. My padel racket felt foreign in my hand, a prop from a scene I'd forgotten how to play. Somewhere, a car alarm sang.

'Serve,' she said. 'We've got one point left.'

I served. She returned. We played as the storm tore the sky apart, two men on a padel court in the rain, hitting a ball back and forth like something that might matter again someday.