The Last Inning

The funeral reception unfolded in Karen's backyard, the sunset bleeding orange across the sky like a bruise. I hadn't seen Mark in seven years—not since the incident that made our friendship dissolve like sugar in hot coffee. Now here we were, thrown together by death, clutching plastic cups of cheap beer.

He'd filled out. The wiry kid I'd played baseball with every summer had thickened around the middle, his face weathered by what looked like hard years. He'd been forced to bear so much: his mother's cancer, his brother's addiction, the divorce he'd mentioned in a rare Christmas card.

"Remember that game?" he asked, gesturing toward where we'd stood as teenagers, back when the world seemed small enough to conquer. "When you hit that ball into the old oak tree and it got stuck?"

I nodded. "We spent two hours trying to knock it down. You finally climbed up there in your good church clothes."

Mark laughed, and the sound cracked in the middle. "Your dad was furious. He'd bought you that new bat for your birthday."

The orange light was fading now, turning the yard into something shadowed and uncertain. I realized with a sudden pang that we were the only ones left from that team. Everyone else had moved away or drifted off, casualties of adulthood's slow attrition.

"I'm sorry," I said, the words heavy and overdue. "For everything."

Mark studied his beer cup. "Yeah. Me too."

Neither of us moved to bridge the distance between us. Some things, once broken, couldn't be repaired—only acknowledged. The bear of our shared past lumbered between us, wild and impossible to tame.

As night fell, I watched him walk to his car, knowing this goodbye might be our last. Some endings are final. Some friendships, like baseball games, have a last inning whether you're ready for them or not.