The Service Game

The padel court echoed with the sharp crack of ball against glass, a sound that used to make her heart race. Now, Elena watched from the sidelines as Marcus laughed with his new partner, a woman ten years younger with thighs that didn't tremble after a three-set match. She sat on the bench, her own padel racquet gathering sweat beside her, and fingered the phone in her pocket. His iPhone had buzzed twice during changeovers—quick, furtive glances he'd thought she hadn't noticed.

"Elena! You up for next?" Marcus called, jogging to the net. His shirt clung to his back, dark with honest effort.

"Think I'll sit this one out," she said, forcing a smile. "Trying that new vitamin regimen the doctor recommended. Feeling a bit off."

"You and your vitamins," he said, but without judgment. He'd always admired her discipline, her commitment to wellness. That was before he'd started looking at someone else's commitment to wellness—someone else's body in yoga pants, someone else's laugh across the net.

She'd found the phone unlocked this morning. A message thread she wasn't supposed to see. Not explicit—that wasn't his style—but intimate in its way. Memories of their padel matches shared with someone else. The way Elena served, her peculiar habit of bouncing the ball exactly four times. Those private details, now rendered less special, less theirs.

He came to the bench now, dripping water and something like genuine concern. "You okay? You've been quiet lately."

Elena looked at him—at the graying temples she'd once kissed, at the shoulders she'd leaned on through job losses and family deaths. The vitamins sat in her bag: D for the depression she'd felt coming, B-complex for the energy she couldn't summon. A chemical attempt to fix what couldn't be fixed with supplements.

"Marcus," she said, her voice steady, "whose number is 555-0187?"

The blood drained from his face. The court behind them went silent, though the match continued. Someone missed a serve. The ball hit the glass with a hollow, echoing sound.

"Elena," he started, then stopped. He didn't deny it. That was the worst part.

"Okay," she said, standing up and shouldering her bag. The vitamin bottle rattled against the water bottle, a small, ordinary sound. "Okay."

She walked away from the court, from the game she'd lost before she'd even known she was playing. The phone in her pocket—his phone, she'd grabbed it by mistake—buzzed again. A message from the other woman: Tonight same time?

Elena deleted it. Then she deleted the thread. Then she turned toward the parking lot, leaving her racquet on the bench, leaving Marcus standing alone at the net, waiting for a serve that wouldn't come.