Seventh Inning Stretch

The baseball game flickered on the bar television—mute, as always. Marcus watched the outfielder drift under a pop fly, the orange jersey bright against the emerald grass. His phone buzzed against the scarred wood of the table, lighting up with her name again. Sarah. He'd stopped counting how many times she'd called.

"You gonna get that?" The bartender polished a glass, not really asking.

Marcus shook his head. Outside, a golden retriever pressed its nose to the glass, breath fogging the pane. Some kid's lost dog, probably. The thing looked happy enough, tail thumping a rhythm against the doorframe like it had all the time in the world.

He thought about the iphone Sarah had given him last Christmas—wrapped in paper she'd hand-painted with constellations. Now it sat on the passenger seat of his car, useless as a paperweight. Three weeks of calls and texts and voicemails he couldn't bring himself to delete, couldn't bear to listen to.

The bartender set down another drink. "Last one, Marcus. You've been here since noon."

He nodded. The baseball game had cut to commercial. On the screen, an orange juice ad showed a perfectly happy family sitting around a breakfast table, sunlight streaming through windows that didn't exist in his apartment anymore.

The dog outside had moved on, loping down the sidewalk toward someone who might actually open the door. Marcus envied it—that simple forward motion, the ability to just keep walking toward something better.

"You know what the worst part is?" Marcus said, the first words he'd spoken in hours. "I can't even remember what we were fighting about."

The bartender just kept polishing glasses, like she'd heard this a thousand times before. Like it didn't matter anyway. Like all the words in the world couldn't fix what was already broken.

Marcus finished his drink, left some cash on the table, and walked out into the fading afternoon light. His phone lit up in his pocket again, and this time, he let it ring.