Seventh Inning Stretch

The baseball stadium roared around us, a sea of orange caps and jerseys, but Marcus and I sat in our plastic seats like statues at a funeral. We'd come to every opening day together for six years. This would be the last.

"You've got spinach," I said, gesturing to my own front tooth.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, not looking at me. "Thanks."

On the field, the pitcher wound up and threw. The batter connected—the crack of the bat sharp against the humid summer air. The crowd surged to its feet. We remained seated.

I watched the outfielder tracking the ball against the orange sky where sun bruised the horizon purple. Everything about this moment felt deliberately cruel. Six years of Sunday mornings with newspapers and coffee. Six years of building something I thought was permanent. Now all of it reduced to this final game, watching the innings tick down like a bomb timer.

"I ordered the spinach dip at our first date," I said suddenly. The memory surfaced unbidden. "You said you hated spinach but ate it anyway because I didn't want it to go to waste."

Marcus finally turned. His eyes were red-rimmed, exhausted. "I still hate spinach."

"Then why did you—"

"Because I wanted you to think I was easy. Because I wanted you to stay."

The seventh inning stretch announcement blared over the PA system. The crowd began "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" like a religious hymn, thousands of voices rising together in something like community, something like belonging.

I stood up. My knees shook.

"Marcus."

"Yeah?"

"I don't want easy anymore."

He looked up at me, and for the first time all evening, something like hope flickered across his face—small, fragile, terrified. Not a solution. Not a promise. Just an opening, like that perfect moment before the bat meets the ball, when everything is still possible.

"Sit down," he said. "The game's not over."

So I sat. And somewhere in the eighth inning, beneath those floodlights that turned everything the same artificial orange, we started trying to figure out if we could become people who didn't need to be easy with each other.