Bottom of the Ninth

The iPhone lit up at 2:47 AM, the sudden brightness blinding in the darkness of Marcus's apartment. He knew better than to reach for it. He knew who it wasn't. But his hand moved anyway, muscle memory from three years of marriage that ended six months ago. The screen showed only a low-battery warning and a baseball score notification from some west coast game that had gone into extra innings.

Marcus threw the covers off and began lacing up his running shoes. This was the pattern now: sleep until 3 AM, run until his lungs burned, stare at the ceiling until dawn. The city was different at this hour—fewer cars, fewer witnesses to his unraveling. His feet hit the pavement in a rhythm that matched the mantra in his head: she's not coming back, she's not coming back.

He ran past the old baseball field where he'd played summer league in college, where Elena had sat in the bleachers with her friends that first night, wearing a vintage Dodgers cap she'd bought at a thrift store. She'd cheered when he hit a double, and later at the bar, she'd pretended not to know what a RBI was. The fence was locked now, the infield overgrown with weeds. Marcus slowed to a walk, chest heaving, and leaned against the chain-link.

His iPhone buzzed in his pocket. Not a call. Just the calendar reminder he'd forgotten to delete: "Elena's birthday dinner, 7 PM." He'd made the reservation three months ago, back when they were still trying.

A group of teenagers passed, carrying baseball bats and laughing about something Marcus couldn't hear. He remembered Elena telling him once, somewhere between hopeless and halfway out the door, that some things were like batting practice—you could swing forever, but that didn't mean you'd ever connect.

Marcus started running again, away from the field, away from the ghost of who they used to be. The iPhone battery died somewhere between 4th and 5th Street, the screen going mercifully black. He kept moving anyway, forward, toward whatever came after the game ended and everyone went home.