The Unfinished Match

The dog — a golden retriever named Leo that Elena had insisted on adopting three years ago — sat by the door, watching me with patient eyes. He knew the routine. Every Tuesday and Thursday since she left, I took him running along the canal path, the same route Elena and I used to jog together in those early, hopeful months when we still believed love was something you could work at like a muscle.

Tonight was different. Tonight I should have been at the padel club, playing mixed doubles with her. That had been our standing date for five years: Tuesday evening padel, drinks afterward at the bar where we'd first met. The text canceling had come three hours ago. Elena had found someone else. Someone who played padel.

"Come on, Leo," I said, clipping the leash. The word *running* felt different now — less exercise, more escape. We moved through the damp streets, past the padel club with its bright lights and the muffled thwack of balls against glass walls. I could almost see them inside: Elena's fierce backhand, her laugh after a missed shot, the way she'd catch my eye across the court. Someone else would be in my place now.

Leo pulled toward the club, whining. He knew this place too. Elena had always slipped him treats under the table while we drank post-game vermouth.

"Not tonight, buddy," I said, throat tight. But then a voice called my name from the entrance. Elena stood there alone in her padel gear, racket in hand, looking smaller than I remembered.

"I couldn't play," she said. "Not without... you know."

The dog pressed against her legs, tail wagging furiously. She knelt to bury her face in his golden fur, and for a moment we were just three people who had loved each other, suspended in the fluorescent glow of the club's entrance.

"One last match?" I heard myself say.

She looked up, eyes bright with tears I'd never seen on the court. "For old times's sake."

So we played, and for an hour, nothing and everything had changed. The dog watched through the glass, and the ball kept bouncing between us like words we'd forgotten how to say.