The Last Inning

Mia sat in section 214, the cheap seats where the beer vendors actually bothered to climb. Below, the baseball diamond gleamed under stadium lights—pristine, manicured, entirely unlike the chaos of her actual life. She'd come here seeking the familiar rhythm of the game, the statistical comfort of innings and outs, but her iPhone kept buzzing in her pocket like a trapped insect.

She pulled it out. Another text from David: *We need to talk about the cable bill. It's in both our names.*

That was David all over. Their marriage was dissolving in real time—she'd moved out three weeks ago, sleeping on her sister's couch—and he was fixated on the cable bill. The literal cables that connected to the wall in the apartment they'd shared for seven years, the same cables that delivered the baseball games he'd pretended to care about just to make her happy.

The crowd roared. A home run. Mia's eyes stung. She remembered the night he'd proposed, right here in this stadium. They'd been drinking overpriced beer and he'd gotten down on one knee during the seventh-inning stretch, clumsy and earnest, while the announcer recited statistics about some rookie pitcher. She'd said yes, certain that love was about finding someone who'd pretend to care about baseball just to sit beside you.

Now she wondered if that was enough.

Her phone buzzed again. *Can you at least respond? I need to know what you want to do about the HBO subscription.*

Mia stood up. The game was in the bottom of the ninth, two outs, full count. The kind of moment that should've felt electric, heavy with possibility. Instead she felt hollowed out, like someone had scraped all the meaning away and left only the shell.

She typed back: *Cancel everything. Keep the deposit.*

Then she blocked his number, turned off her phone, and watched the final pitch—a perfect strike—without anyone to share it with. For the first time in seven years, she didn't have to pretend. The freedom tasted like salt and possibility, terrible and sweet.