The Last Inning

The baseball field lay abandoned, weeds choking the baseline where Marcus and I once played catch until our arms ached. That was before everything—before the promotion, before the affair, before the silence grew so thick between us you could cut it with a knife.

Now I stood here with an orange in my pocket, a stupid peace offering. Marcus always loved them. He'd peel them in one long strip, demonstrating the patience I never had. The citrus scent already permeated my jacket, a ghost of the friendship I'd destroyed.

My iPhone buzzed—Sarah, again. 'Did you talk to him?' I silenced it. Some conversations couldn't happen over text. Some required standing on a dusty infield at sunset, waiting.

Footsteps crunched behind me. Marcus hadn't changed much—thinner maybe, with gray threading his temples, but the same guarded expression.

'I thought you'd come,' he said, not meeting my eyes. 'Running away from problems—that's your specialty.'

The irony burned. He was the one who'd moved across the country without a goodbye.

'I brought this.' I tossed him the orange. He caught it reflexively, those old baseball instincts surfacing.

He peeled it slowly, the same methodical strip. The smell hit us both—summer afternoons, childhood promises, the specific kind of hope you only have before life teaches you better.

'Sarah told me about the layoff,' he said finally.

I nodded. We were both running now—me from failure, him from whatever he'd become out west. The iPhone lit up again, my boss this time. I turned it off completely.

'I quit today,' I said.

Marcus's eyebrows rose. For the first time, he looked at me really looked. 'Yeah?'

'Yeah. I'm done running.'

He handed me half the orange. We ate standing on the pitcher's mound as darkness fell, not saying much. Sometimes friendship isn't about grand gestures or fixing everything. Sometimes it's just sharing fruit in the growing dark, acknowledging how far you've drifted while secretly hoping the tide might bring you back together eventually.

My phone stayed dead in my pocket. For the first time in years, I was exactly where I needed to be.