The Score We Settle

The rain began just as Elena stepped onto the padel court, her wrist brace still fresh from the surgery David couldn't be bothered to attend. She'd booked the court at 7 PM on purpose—their old date night time, back when they still shared things besides a mortgage and dwindling patience.

Her phone buzzed in her bag. Probably David again, texting about some work crisis that couldn't wait until he finished his 'important drinks' with clients. The ones he'd forgotten to mention until noon today, the same way he'd forgotten their anniversary last week, and the week before that.

A crack of lightning split the sky, bright and terrible as an old photograph suddenly exposed. Elena didn't move. She stood at the service line, racket loose in her hand, watching the storm clouds bruise purple over the clubhouse where they'd met three years ago. Back when he'd pretended to care about her backhand, or at least pretended well enough that she'd believed him.

Her iPhone lit up again on the bench. She didn't need to check to know it was him, probably offering some half-hearted apology about 'networking' and 'the partnership' and all the other words he'd been using as shields lately. Words that had somehow become more real to him than the woman waiting at home.

Another lightning strike, closer this time. The rain began in earnest, cold against her skin, and still she didn't move. Let it rain, she thought. Let the court flood, let everything wash clean. She'd paid for the hour. She'd use every damn minute of it.

The ball sat near her foot, yellow and stubborn against the wet blue surface. Elena picked it up, bouncing it once, twice. She tossed it high, served hard into the darkness. No opponent to return it, no David to critique her form, no one to witness the way her shoulders shook with something too big to be called crying anymore.

The storm swallowed her serve whole. And then, finally, Elena walked away from the court, leaving her phone on the bench where it buzzed and buzzed, learning for the first time in years what it meant to be truly unreachable.