Called Out Looking

The stadium lights glared overhead as Elias watched yet another prospect swing and miss. He'd been a baseball scout for thirty-two years, his eye once legendary for spotting talent before anyone else. Now, at fifty-seven, he wondered if he'd lost his gift — or if he'd ever really had it.

He checked his iPhone again. No messages from Sarah. Just the growing, gnawing silence between them that had started six months ago, around the time she'd begun password-protecting her phone and working late at the firm.

"Strike three!" the umpire called, and the boy threw his bat into the dirt.

Elias should have been taking notes. Instead, his mind kept circling back to the previous night, when Sarah had left her iPhone on the kitchen counter while she showered. He'd become a spy in his own marriage, scrolling through months of deleted messages, learning that his wife of twenty-three years had been having an affair with her junior partner.

He hadn't confronted her. Couldn't. So here he sat, watching baseball games alone, pretending everything was fine.

His phone buzzed. A text from Sarah: "We need to talk."

Elias stood up slowly, leaving his scorecard behind. He'd spent his whole life watching people, analyzing their movements, predicting their futures. He'd seen thousands of young men swing and miss, seen their dreams die in the dirt of home plate. But he'd never seen this coming — never recognized the signs in his own marriage, never read the pitch that was coming for him.

The baseball game continued behind him, another strikeout, another disappointment. He walked toward the exit, knowing some strikes you see coming, and some you don't. The ones you don't see are the ones that hurt the most.