The Last Padel Match

Emma traced the life line on his palm, her finger pressing into the skin like she was trying to read braille she'd forgotten how to interpret. The sweat from his padel match still clung to his hand—his third this week, his fourth new obsession since she'd stopped counting.

"You're running again," she said, not looking up from his hand. "Not literally. But you know."

"It's just a game, Em."

"It's never just a game with you."

The goldfish in the kitchen—Bubbles, because they'd been young and uninspired when they bought it seven years ago—circled its bowl in endless, silent revolutions. She wondered sometimes if it was dementia or just resignation that made it swim the same pattern, hour after hour, year after year. She wondered which was worse.

"We could play mixed doubles," David offered, pulling his hand away. "Sarah and her partner are looking for—"

"I don't want to play padel, David. I want to know why you can't sit still for five minutes without needing to be somewhere else, doing something else, becoming someone else."

He looked at her then, really looked at her, and she saw it—the same expression he'd worn when he quit his job to start that brewery that never opened. When he decided they should sell everything and travel the world, then changed his mind three weeks later. When his mother died and he couldn't cry until six months later, at a Wendy's drive-thru.

The sphinx had nothing on him. At least the sphinx's riddles had answers.

"I'm happy," he said. "Can't that be enough?"

"Are you?"

The goldfish surfaced, opened its mouth once, and disappeared beneath the plastic castle.

"I think so," he said, but his eyes were already drifting toward the window, toward the padel court beyond, toward the next match, the next game, the next version of himself he hadn't met yet but was absolutely certain he'd love.

Emma released his palm. She'd forgotten what she was looking for anyway.