The Last Orange

Marcus stood at the baseline of the padel court, his racquet hanging loose at his side. Sarah stood across the net — his oldest friend, his recent ex, his current mistake.

"I'm not doing this," he said, though his feet stayed planted.

The orange bulb of the court lights hummed above them. Behind Sarah, the bear of a man she'd left him for sat in the gallery, arms crossed, bull-neck thick with satisfaction. Marcus had invited David. He wanted the triangulation, the theater of it.

"Play," Sarah said, tossing the ball underhand. It bounced once, twice.

Marcus caught it. The orange surface of the ball felt sticky against his palm. He remembered summer nights, stolen oranges from a neighbor's tree, Sarah's laugh sticky-sweet with juice and danger. They were fifteen then, forty now, and everything between them had rotted from the inside.

"I heard about the promotion," she said, advancing to the net. "Congratulations."

"Bear market," he said, serving. The ball hit the wire wall, angled impossible. She returned it easily. "David told you?"

"David tells me everything."

The bull in the gallery hadn't moved. Marcus had hired him three years ago, mentored him, introduced him to Sarah at the Christmas party. The three of them had drunk champagne, talked stock options, played padel on this same court. Now Marcus's racquet felt like a weapon he didn't know how to use.

"He's good for you," Marcus said, though it tasted like ash.

"He's not you."

The ball clipped the net, rolled to a stop between them. They both watched it, this small orange thing that had brought them here, to this moment of suspended violence.

"Do you remember," Sarah said, "when we stole that bear statue from the motel lobby?"

"Because we were drunk."

"Because we were alive."

She walked to the net, reached her hand across. Marcus didn't move. The bull stood up in the gallery. The court lights flickered, an orange strobe against the darkness.

Marcus caught the ball again. He thought about markets, about bulls and bears, about how the only way to survive was to ride one and outlast the other. He thought about friendship as a form of survival, about love as something you bear.

"Again," he said.

And Sarah smiled, and tossed the ball.