Three Sets

The padel court at sunset was where their marriage had come to die, not with a bang but with the rhythmic thwack of rubber against asphalt. Elena's ponytail swung like a metronome counting down their final minutes.

"You're running away again," Marco said, slamming his racquet into the ball. It hit the wire fence with a metallic clang that echoed his accusation.

"I'm literally running toward the ball, Marco. Not everything is a metaphor." But Elena's breath caught, because of course he was right. She'd been running for months—running from the conversations that needed to happen, running from the blank spaces that had grown between them in bed, running from the terrifying realization that she wasn't sure she loved him anymore.

"Your vitamins," he said, gesturing toward her bag. "You're still taking those? The doctor said they might not even help."

Elena felt the familiar heat rise in her chest. "I'm trying, Marco. Isn't that what you wanted? Me to try?" The vitamin D deficiency had become their shorthand for everything wrong with her—her fatigue, her low moods, her apparent inability to be the person he'd married. The pills sat in her bag like tiny accusations.

"I wanted *us* to try," he said softly, and the ball bounced between them, untouched.

They played in silence then, the only sounds their breathing and the squeak of sneakers on the court. Elena found herself running harder than she had in months, diving for shots she'd usually let go, her body moving with a violence she couldn't express in words. Each impact sent tremors up her arm, each sprint stretched her lungs to capacity.

When Marco finally missed an easy shot, he didn't curse. He just walked to the net, leaning his forehead against the wire.

"I saw you with him," he said. "Last Tuesday. You weren't at pilates."

Elena stopped running. The truth she'd been outrunning finally caught her, winded but relentless. The vitamins in her bag suddenly felt incredibly heavy.

"I was going to tell you," she said, and her voice sounded like someone else's. "I just didn't know how to stop running long enough to say the words."

The court lights flickered on, illuminating everything they'd been hiding in the dark. Some games, Elena realized, you don't get to finish. Some sets are called before anyone wins.