Weather System

The padel court smelled of ozone and impending rain. Elena adjusted her grip on the racket, watching Tomas stretch his hamstrings with deliberate precision. They'd been coming here every Tuesday for three years, and somewhere around year two, Tuesday had become the only day they spoke without arguing.

"Your form's off," Tomas said, not looking at her. "You're telegraphing your backhand again."

Elena thought about the baseball cap she'd thrown away yesterday — his University of Michigan cap, the one he'd left at her apartment during their first month together, back when she still believed in signs and tokens and love that lasted. Eight years later, the cap had smelled like his hair gel and their shared history. Now it was probably in a landfill, slowly decomposing alongside the rest of her twenties.

"Maybe I'm not telegraphing," she said, serving the ball hard against the glass wall. "Maybe I've just stopped pretending to play by your rules."

Lightning forked across the sky, a violent crack of white that split the clouds. They both flinched. Tomas ran a hand through his hair — thinner now than when they'd met, graying at the temples like something time had stolen while they weren't paying attention.

"We should go," he said, but he didn't move.

"Three points," Elena said. "Finish the set."

They played through the first drops of rain, cold and sudden against heated skin. Elena thought about how marriage was like this — refusing to walk away from a game you'd already lost, soaking wet and miserable but still swinging at balls that weren't even coming your way anymore. Tomas's hair plastered to his forehead. He looked like a stranger.

"I slept with someone," she said, as the sky opened up.

The thunder came a second later, but she saw it happen first — his face, that lightning-strike realization, the way his whole body seemed to fracture before her eyes. He dropped his racket. It hit the court with a sound like something breaking irreparably.

"When?" he shouted over the rain.

"Does it matter?" She walked toward him, not to comfort him but to gather her things. "The game was already over, Tomas. You were the only one still keeping score."