Seventh Inning Stretch

The baseball game droned on—another meaningless Tuesday in July. Elena sat beside Marcus in the plastic stadium seat, the orange sunset bleeding into the horizon like a bruise. She'd stopped cheering three innings ago. Marcus hadn't noticed.

He kept checking his iPhone, the blue light flickering against his face like a pulse. Another text from HER. Elena knew without asking. The same woman who'd sent him into that spiraling depression last winter, the one whose name he'd whispered in his sleep twice now.

"I'm getting a beer," she said, but Marcus just nodded, thumb already typing a response.

The concourse was empty. She bought an orange soda instead—something sour to match the knot in her stomach. A man in a faded baseball cap nodded at her, sympathy in his eyes. They all saw it. The marriage that had become a bear hibernating through winters of silence.

They'd met here, actually. Fifteen years ago. A foul ball had landed near her feet, and some handsome stranger had retrieved it with a grin. Now that stranger sat in section 214, sexting another woman while their marriage died.

Her phone buzzed. Marcus: "Where r u?"

She watched the cursor blink. Could type back. Could walk back to their seat and pretend everything was fine. Could wait until the seventh inning stretch, then pack her things.

Instead, Elena typed: "Going home. Don't wait up."

She left the soda untouched, half-full and melting onto the concrete. Some endings didn't deserve dramatic speeches. Some just deserved orange sunsets and the courage to walk away first.