The Last Set

The padel court echoed with the rhythmic thwack of rubber against glass, each shot a conversation they couldn't have. Elena watched across the net as David's iPhone vibrated on the bench, third time in ten minutes. A cable snaked from it to the wall charger, umbilical and accusing.

"Your serve," she called, but her heart wasn't in it anymore.

They'd come here every Tuesday for three years, after their spinach and feta salads at that café downtown. The routine had been their sphinx—unchanging, inscrutable, demanding they solve its riddle without ever speaking it aloud.

David missed his return. The ball sailed into the fence.

"Sorry," he said, not sorry at all.

Elena walked to the bench, picked up his phone. The screen litened with messages: *Can you talk?* *I need to know.* *Please.*

"Sarah," she said quietly.

"Elena, it's not what you think—"

"She's asking if you'll leave me. That's exactly what I think."

The silence between them grew heavier than any accusation.

"We're unhappy," he said finally. "You know it. I know it. This"—he gestured to the court, to their Tuesday ritual—"this isn't living."

"So you solved the sphinx," Elena said, and her voice surprised her with its steadiness. "The answer wasn't in the riddle. It was in asking why we kept trying to solve something that had no answer."

She unstrapped her wristband and set it on the bench.

"I'll get my things from the apartment tomorrow."

"Elena—"

"No. You got what you wanted. Now let me get what I need."

She walked away without looking back. Behind her, the court stood silent, their last set unfinished, the ball resting against the fence like a period at the end of a sentence they'd both been too afraid to speak.