The Last Set at Sunset

She hated padel. That's what she was thinking when her backhand sailed into the net, again. The ball skittered across the blue court like a trapped thing. Across from her, Marcus wiped sweat from his forehead with his wristband and offered that smile — the one that used to make her melt, now just made her tired.

'Your form's off,' he called out. 'You're not following through.'

Her iphone buzzed in her bag on the sidelines. She knew who it was without looking. The same person who'd been texting her for three weeks. The same person she kept telling herself she would stop answering.

'My shoulder hurts,' she said, which was true enough. 'I'm done.'

She walked to the bench and picked up her water bottle, condensation slick against her palm. Drank until her throat stopped burning. The cat appeared then — a calico with a mangy coat and one torn ear, slinking around the fence bordering the courts. It watched them with ancient, judging eyes.

'You're giving up already?' Marcus's voice had that edge now. The one that emerged whenever things didn't go his way. 'We paid for the court until eight.'

She looked at her phone. Another message. Then looked at him, really looked at him, and saw something she'd been refusing to see for months. The way his jaw tightened when she didn't perform. How he always positioned himself just slightly upwind.

'I'm not giving up,' she said quietly. 'I'm just done pretending.'

The cat sat down and began cleaning its paw, utterly indifferent to their drama. That was the moment, she realized later. That was when she understood.

She picked up her bag. 'You can play out the time if you want. Find someone else's form to critique.'

'Sarah, come on. Don't be like this.'

She was already running toward the parking lot, running toward something else, running toward the messages on her phone and the life she'd been arranging in secret. The cat watched her go, then turned its attention to the man still standing alone on the court, swinging at nothing.

That night, she lay in the bathtub, water rising around her ears, and finally answered the text. The phone slipped from her wet fingers and sank to the bottom. She let it stay there.