The Storm Before the Quiet

The lightning cracked across the sky just as I missed the backhand. Padel ball ricocheted off the glass wall, bouncing twice before I could track it.

"Your form's off," Sarah said, already moving to serve. She adjusted her baseball cap—my baseball cap, the one I'd left on her bedside table six weeks ago. "You're overthinking the swing."

I wasn't thinking about the game. I was thinking about running, about how I'd been running from this conversation since our third date, when she'd mentioned wanting children someday and I'd stared at my wineglass like it held answers.

"We need to talk about us," I said, though we'd already had this conversation three times. Always in motion, always between things. Between meetings, between games, between cities.

She served anyway. The ball came at me fast and I hit it without thinking—a perfect smash that landed exactly inside the line. Point to me.

"See?" She smiled, but her eyes gave away everything. "When you stop overthinking, you're brilliant."

Another lightning strike, closer now. The sky opened up and rain began to sheet down, turning the padel court into a slick reflection of what we'd become.

"I'm not leaving because I don't love you," I said over the thunder. "I'm leaving because I love you enough not to waste your time."

She took off my hat and set it on the bench. Her hair flattened in the rain. "You think running away makes you noble? It just makes you a coward who's good at cardio."

We stood there as the storm broke around us, neither moving, neither speaking, while the rain washed away everything we'd been pretending wasn't already over.