Thunder on the Court

The lightning split the sky just as Elena's backhand slammed into the chain-link fence, the metal singing with the impact. We both paused, racquets lowered, watching the storm that had been threatening all afternoon finally decide to break.

"Your serve," she said, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her wrist. Her skin glistened in the strange violet light.

"We should probably call it." I glanced at the clouds roiling above the padel court. "Steve said lightning was safe if you're fifty feet away. We're definitely not fifty feet away."

Elena laughed—a sound I used to know better than my own heartbeat, now foreign as a stranger's voice. "Since when do you care what Steve says? He thinks you can cure depression with spinach smoothies."

That's when it hit me: the spinach thing. She'd been doing that when we lived together. Blending those awful green concoctions every morning, convinced she could optimize her way out of her sadness. I'd pretended to support her while secretly pouring mine down the sink. The irony wasn't lost on me—we'd both been performing wellness while drowning in something we couldn't name.

"I'm trying, El. That's the point."

She looked at me then, really looked at me, for the first time since our divorce was finalized six months ago. The lightning flashed again, closer this time, illuminating the wet court and the years between us.

"You know what's funny?" she said softly. "I still make those shakes. Every morning. But now I actually drink them."

Rain began to fall, fat drops hissing against the court. We didn't move.

"And I still think about you every time I see spinach in the grocery store," I heard myself say. "Which is ridiculous, because you hated that I never drank them."

"I didn't hate that you didn't drink them." She stepped closer, rain plastering her hair to her cheeks. "I hated that you pretended to. I hated that you thought you had to perform support instead of just being honest with me."

The thunder came then, a crack that shook the ground beneath our feet. But neither of us moved toward the clubhouse. We stood there in the downpour, two people who'd spent years lying about green vegetables and everything else, finally letting the storm wash it away.

"Your serve," she said again, smiling through the rain. "One last point."

I bounced the ball, feeling it slick between my fingers. Some things, I realized, you don't fix. You just learn to play in the rain.