Seventh Inning Stretch

The metal bench dug into Elena's thighs, cold through her jeans. Around her, the crowd roared as the batter connected, sending a baseball arcing toward the left field fence. She barely registered the cheer. Beside her, Clay leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped together like he was praying for something he'd spent the last decade refusing to ask for outright.

"You haven't said anything real in months," Elena said, her voice swallowed by the noise. The beer vendor passed, and she shook her head automatically.

Clay turned, his face shadowed under the brim of his cap. "Here? Really?"

"Why not here?" She gestured at the field, at the painted bases and the manicured dirt, at all the artifice of things people pretended mattered. "We're good at pretending. This is what we do."

He flinched. She knew he would. She'd learned exactly how to hit him where it hurt, had developed the skill through years of resentment and midnight conversations with herself. But lately she'd begun to recognize the same bull-headed refusal to bend in herself, the same stubborn certainty that she was right, that she was the injured party, that her silence was justified.

The first fat drops of rain began to fall, darkening sections of Clay's gray shirt. Around them, people were opening umbrellas, moving toward the concourse, but neither of them moved.

"I'm tired," Elena said, and it came out more honest than she'd intended. "I'm tired of waiting for you to figure it out. I'm tired of being the bad guy because I stopped playing along."

Clay's jaw worked. He stared at the tarp being dragged onto the field. The announcement came over the PA system—game delayed due to approaching weather. Everyone was leaving except them, two figures frozen in place while lightning cracked the sky in half, a brilliant white scar that illuminated the emptying stadium.

"I never wanted to hurt you," he said, finally. "I just didn't know how to be what you needed."

Elena felt something crack open inside her, something that had been sealed tight for so long she'd forgotten it was there. She reached for his hand, her fingers cold against his warm palm. The rain was falling harder now, plastering her hair to her face, but neither of them moved toward cover.

"I know," she said. "I didn't know how to tell you what that was."

The storm broke overhead, and in the chaos of wind and water, they stayed seated on the cold bench, finally saying things that should have been said years ago, while lightning continued to stitch the sky together.