Seventh Inning Stretch

The stadium lights hummed above us, a canopy of artificial daylight. Mark's hand rested on my knee, his fingers drumming the rhythm of a nonexistent song. I watched his reflection in the darkened screen of his iphone, face-down on the cup holder between us.

'You're going to miss it,' he said, nodding toward the field where the baseball arced through the humid summer air.

I'd already missed so much.

Three weeks ago, I'd found the messages. Not the obvious kind – no lipstick collars or hotel receipts. Just digital breadcrumbs: a restaurant receipt forwarded, 'Had to be there' accompanied by a winking emoji, a contact simply named 'Fox.'

My hair had started falling out then – stress, according to the doctor, though I knew better. It was mourning. Grief for the version of us that had existed before I'd looked, before I'd known. Now it hung limp against my neck, a copper curtain I couldn't quite bring myself to cut.

'Thunderstorm coming,' the man behind us said. 'Feel that pressure?'

I felt nothing but Mark's thumb rubbing circles on my denim, a gesture so practiced it had become meaningless. We'd been coming to these games for fifteen years, since college, when the cheap seats felt like luxury and love felt like something you could earn through attention.

Then the first crack of lightning split the sky – a violent fracture of white that illuminated everything at once. In that split second, I saw Mark clearly: the new lines around his eyes, the way he leaned away from me imperceptibly, the iphone screen flashing with a notification.

FOXTROT: Can't stop thinking about last night.

He flipped the phone face-down. He smiled at me, that careful smile that used to make my chest ache.

'Did you see that lightning?' he asked.

I stood up. The crowd roared for something happening on the field – a home run, a strikeout, it didn't matter. 'I need some air,' I said.

'You want a pretzel?' he asked, already reaching for his wallet.

I walked toward the concourse, toward the exits where the rain was beginning to fall in sheets. Behind me, the baseball game continued, the announcer's voice cracking over the PA system, the crowd chanting something collective and meaningless.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Mark: Where did you go?

I stepped out into the storm and let the rain ruin my hair, ruin everything, finally.