Running the Bases Alone

She laced up her running shoes, the worn leather stretching and creaking - her father's old glove. The city slept, silent as she slipped out at 4 AM, same as the last six months. Since the funeral.

Three miles in, lightning cracked the sky overhead. Rain sheeted down, warm and relentless, but she kept running, lungs burning with a familiar ache. The storm felt right somehow, electric and wild, waking nerves that had gone numb.

She found herself standing at an abandoned baseball diamond behind the rec center, the one where she'd played catch with Tom. He'd never been much of an athlete, but he'd bought her that glove anyway. She'd been the one with the arm - he just loved watching her play.

The storm roared overhead as she dug her toes into the chalk. Lightning flashed again and she saw it - the way he'd looked at her across the backstop, grinning, when she'd missed an easy popup but laughed instead of apologizing. How he'd come to every game, sat alone in the stands, cheering louder than anyone else's family.

The glove came off. She positioned herself, toe on the rubber, and threw. The ball soared over the fence, but this time no one was there to see it.

Running back, something shifted. Her phone screen lit up - Tom's sister, calling to finally clear out his apartment. They'd all told her to stop running, to stay and grieve properly. But this was how she knew him, in motion and wind and sunlight, not trapped in some dark room. Her feet hit the pavement harder. Lightning forked across the sky, brilliant and permanent. The storm wasn't trapping her anymore - it was guiding her.

At the apartment, his sister stood at the door, uncertain. Sarah caught her own reflection - wild hair, soaked clothes, something raw and electric in her eyes that she hadn't seen in months.

"I'm ready," she said, and she wasn't just talking about boxes.

The glove lay in the bottom of her bag, the lightning outside her window now beautiful instead of terrifying. Running had brought her here. Tomorrow she'd run somewhere else. For the first time since the funeral, she actually looked forward to it.