The Score We Keep

The lightning splintered the sky above the padel court—a violent crack that Julia felt in her teeth more than heard. Beside her, Daniel didn't flinch. His racket connected with the ball, sending it ricocheting off the glass wall with a sharp, practiced echo.

"You're still keeping score," she said, watching him. "After everything."

"Somebody has to." He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. The bear cub figurine tattooed on his forearm—something stupid from a Vegas bachelor weekend, before he knew what loss actually felt like—seemed to stare at her with dead, inked eyes.

The cable in their apartment had been cut since Tuesday. Daniel's doing, probably. Or maybe the universe was finally cutting them off from the noise of other people's disasters, forcing them to sit with their own. Four days of silence except for the refrigerator's hum, their own breathing, and the arguments they kept swallowing.

Julia had found herself at three AM Googling how to leave a marriage when you still loved the person. The search results had been frustratingly practical. Lawyers, finances, leases. Nothing about how to explain to your husband that you couldn't bear another morning of coffee across from someone who looked at you like you were a puzzle he'd stopped trying to solve.

"Game point," Daniel said now, bouncing the ball.

Another lightning strike illuminated the court—glass walls, the sweat on their skin, the notebook where he'd been tracking their wins and losses since college. Julia had always thought it was romantic, how he remembered everything. Now she saw it for what it was: he wasn't recording memories, he was building a case.

"I met someone," she said. The words hung in the air, heavier than she expected.

Daniel's racket paused mid-swing. For the first time in twelve years, he stopped keeping score.

"Do I know him?"

"No." She watched his face, searching for something—hurt, anger, anything. Found only a weary acknowledgment.

"Good." He tossed her the ball. "Your serve."

Outside, thunder finally caught up to the light. Julia caught the ball against her hip, feeling the sudden, terrible clarity of endings that come not from storms or strangers, but from the quiet erosion of the life you'd carefully built.