Untethered

The padel court echoed with the sharp *thwack* of rubber against glass, a sound that had become the metronome of Elena's evenings since Julian left. She stood at the net, sweat tracing the curve of her spine, watching Mark return her serve with the easy grace of a man who'd never had his heart broken by someone who loved baseball more than they loved him.

"You're distracted," Mark said, bouncing the ball. He was twenty years her senior, a vice president with corner-office views and a marriage that had been decaying for a decade. Their affair was an open secret in the office, the kind everyone pretended not to notice.

Elena laughed, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. "Just thinking about the merger. The cable company acquisition."

"Work stays at work, Elena. That's the rule." His voice was gentle, but the command was there, wrapped in concern.

She served again, harder this time. The ball hit the glass wall and ricocheted past him. Julian had loved baseball—the way strategy could shift in a single pitch, how a whole season came down to moments. He'd left her three months ago for a promotion in Chicago, and she'd thrown herself into the merger deal with a ferocity that frightened even her own reflection.

After the game, they sat in the clubhouse, the silence between them thick with things they couldn't say. Mark's phone buzzed—his wife, probably. Elena checked hers too: nothing. No missed calls, no texts, just the empty glow of a screen that had stopped lighting up with messages that made her heart quicken.

"The deal closes next week," Mark said, not looking at her. "After that... we should probably stop this."

The words hung between them, inevitable and terrible. Elena nodded, unable to trust her voice. She'd known this was temporary. Everything was temporary now.

She drove home to an apartment that still held traces of Julian: his baseball cap on the hook by the door, the cable subscription they'd shared, the way the morning light hit the kitchen table where they'd drunk coffee and argued about futures that never happened.

On her television, the cable news droned on about corporate acquisitions and market shifts. Elena turned it off and stood in the silence, realizing she'd been trying to outrun something for months. The padel games, the late nights at the office, Mark with his careful boundaries and convenient unhappiness—all of it just ways to keep moving, keep from feeling the weight of a life she hadn't chosen.

She picked up her phone and scrolled to Julian's number, her thumb hovering over the call button. Then she deleted it.

Some games, you don't get to play again. You just move to the next court, pick up your paddle, and serve.