The Padel Court at Midnight

Elena stood at the edge of the padel court, the glass walls slick with condensation. It was 2 AM in Marbella, and she should have been asleep in the villa David had rented for their anniversary. Instead, she was watching Marcus—the man David had brought on this trip to "network"—practice his serve alone in the floodlights.

The water in the nearby pool reflected the moon like a shattered mirror. Three days ago, Elena had seen them by that same pool: David's hand lingering on Marcus's shoulder, the way Marcus laughed at something David hadn't even said, the particular intimacy of two people who'd already crossed a line they couldn't uncross.

She'd been palm-reading since she was fourteen, a party trick her grandmother taught her. She'd stopped believing in it until she looked at Marcus's hand across the dinner table that first night. His lifeline was broken, his heart line shallow. A warning she'd chosen to ignore.

"You're good," Marcus said, noticing her. The ball hit the wire wall with a metallic thwack. "David said you don't play."

"I don't."

"Then why are you watching?"

Elena walked onto the court, her bare feet sticking slightly to the artificial turf. "A fox ate the cat that lived behind our house when I was seven," she said. "I watched it happen through the kitchen window. The fox didn't even run away afterward. It just sat there, grooming itself, like it had every right to take what wasn't his."

Marcus's paddle dropped to his side. "I don't know what you think you saw—"

"I saw you both by the pool. I saw David's face when he looked at you. I haven't seen him look at me like that in six years."

The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating. Marcus finally set down his paddle and walked toward the exit. "I'm sorry, Elena. I never meant to—"

"It's not you I'm angry at," she said, and for the first time, she realized it was true. "It's him. It's always been him."

She picked up his abandoned paddle, weighed it in her hand, and served the ball into the darkness where he'd disappeared. It hit the back wall with a satisfying crack, like something finally breaking.