Cat's Eye View of the End

The baseball stadium echoed with the hollow sound of a crowd that had already left. Elias sat alone in section 204, seat 12, watching the grounds crew drag the infield dirt. The game had ended three hours ago, but he hadn't moved.

"You're still here?"

He didn't turn. "Still here."

Maria dropped into the seat beside him, pressing a cold can against his cheek. Condensation dripped onto his collar. "You missed the seventh-inning stretch. That's when she sent the text."

"I know."

"So you sat through six more innings?"

"Seventh, eighth, ninth. Extra innings."

"Elias."

"It was the bottom of the thirteenth when I finally looked at my phone." He cracked the beer open. "She's gone. Just packed her things and left. Said she couldn't do it anymore—couldn't do us anymore."

Maria was his oldest friend, the one who'd introduced them five years ago at a wedding where the bride had worn orange and the groom had cried during his vows. The one who'd warned him then that some people were meant to be lessons, not lives.

"Did she say where?" Maria asked quietly.

"No. Just that she couldn't pretend anymore." Elias took a long drink. "She said I'd know eventually."

"You will."

"That's the problem, isn't it?" He gestured at the empty stadium. "I don't want to know. I want to sit here in the bottom of the thirteenth inning forever, where the game is suspended and nobody has to lose."

Maria bumped his shoulder with hers. "Come home. I'll make you that spinach lasagna you like. You can sleep on my couch."

"What about Buster?" Their cat, the custody agreement neither of them had discussed.

"She left him." Maria hesitated. "Elias, she left him in the apartment with food and water, but she's not coming back for him. He's waiting for you."

The baseball diamond blurred. Elias stood, knees cracking, and followed his friend up the concrete steps toward the exit. Behind them, the stadium lights flickered off one by one, surrendering the field to darkness.