Bearing Witness

The funeral home smelled of lilies and regret. Maya stood in the corner, nursing a glass of lukewarm punch the color of a bruised sunset—that sickly orange they always served at these things. She hadn't seen Elena in six years, not since the night everything fell apart.

"You came."

Maya turned. Elena's husband David stood there, wearing a suit that didn't fit quite right. His eyes were red-rimmed. "I wouldn't miss it."

"She talked about you, you know. At the end." David's voice cracked. "She kept saying how you were the best friend she ever had. How she wished she'd—"

"Don't." The word escaped Maya sharper than intended. She couldn't bear this. Not now.

They'd been inseparable in college, two scholarship kids with everything to prove. Both played outfield—Elena in center, Maya in right. They could read each other's minds on the field, calling catches before the ball left the bat. The summer before senior year, they'd driven three hours to watch their favorite team play. Elena bought them matching baseball caps, wore hers until the brim frayed.

Then came the recruiting offers. Same team. One spot.

Elena got it.

That was the story Maya told herself for years. But the truth was messier. After Elena signed, Maya had stopped calling. Stopped answering. The jealousy had curdled into something sour and lived in her throat like something spoiled. She couldn't bear being the backup friend, the one Elena visited during off-seasons with stories about the life Maya should have had.

Now Elena was gone. Some freak infection. Three weeks from diagnosis to death.

"She wanted you to have this." David pressed something into Maya's hand—a baseball, scuffed and weathered. "She carried it everywhere after you stopped talking. Said it reminded her of—of who she was before. Before the contracts and the money and all the shit that didn't matter."

Maya's thumb found the inscription: *E&M, Outfield Forever, '09.* The orange laces were faded to pink.

"She was sorry," David said quietly. "Never found the right words."

Maya looked at the baseball, at the ghost of a friendship that had mattered more than her pride. "Me neither."

Outside, the sun was going down, painting the sky in bruising shades of violet and burnt orange. Maya gripped the baseball and let herself finally, after six years, grieve the person she'd been too proud to miss.

She would bear this weight now. It was the least Elena deserved.