The Last Padel Match

The padel court echoed with the sharp *thwack* of rubber against glass, a rhythm that had become the soundtrack to Marcus's unraveling. At forty-seven, standing on the sidelines of his own divorce proceedings, he found himself here every Tuesday night, watching Elena play. She hadn't changed out of her work clothes—still wearing that ridiculous navy blazer she'd bought when they first opened the firm together. The hat she'd worn to court that morning, a wide-brimmed thing that made her look like a stranger, now sat on the bench between them.

"Your serve," she called out, not looking at him.

The divorce would be final in three weeks. The firm would be hers. He would keep the cabin in Vermont—the one place they'd ever been happy, before the ambition had curdled into something corrosive. He'd been such a fucking bear those last years, growling at every interruption, hibernating in his office until dawn, waking only to snarl about billing hours and market share.

"Marcus?"

He bounced the ball, watching it rise and fall like the pit in his stomach. The overhead cable that crisscrossed above the court cast shadows across the ground—a net of impossible geometry. He remembered the night they'd secured the Series C funding, how they'd drunk champagne on this very roof, how she'd traced the lifeline on his palm and whispered, "This is it, isn't it? The beginning."

It had been the beginning of the end.

He served. The ball sailed wide, clattering against the glass wall. Elena didn't even move to return it.

"You're missing everything these days," she said quietly, and it wasn't about the game.

Marcus walked to the net, his chest tight with something between grief and relief. "I bought the tickets," he said. "For Vermont. One way."

She finally looked at him, and for the first time in months, he saw something other than victory in her eyes. "Don't come back, Marcus."

"I wasn't planning to." He picked up his hat from the bench. "I wasn't planning to."