The Last Inning

The wilted spinach lay in my colander like something that had already given up. I was supposed to meet Marcus for dinner—he'd always been the one who cooked, the one who made everything seem effortless. Tonight, I was attempting his signature recipe, though we hadn't spoken in three months.

The radio carried the baseball game, static threading through the announcer's voice. We used to listen together, back when 'friend' was still the right word for what we were. Back when silence between us felt companionable instead of like something broken that neither of us knew how to fix.

I remembered the last time I saw him at that dive bar near the river. Water had condensed on the outside of my glass, pooling on the coaster, and he'd said something that changed everything—something about how he'd been in love with me for years, how he couldn't do this anymore. I'd chosen to misunderstand. Chosen to pretend he meant something else, something smaller.

Now the spinach sputtered in the pan, and I thought about how we'd spent years orbiting each other like celestial bodies caught in the wrong gravity. He was my sphinx, posing riddles I'd refused to answer because the truth felt too enormous to carry.

The baseball crowd roared through the speaker—someone must have hit a home run. I turned off the burner, the food barely edible. I'd never cook like Marcus. I'd never love anyone with the particular, terrifying ferocity he'd offered me.

Some innings you take a swing and miss. Some, you stand there with the bat on your shoulder, watching perfect pitches go by because you're too afraid to even try.

I scraped the spinach into the trash and ordered a pizza instead. Some losses you carry with you like a scar. Others you learn to live around, the way a tree grows around a fence post until it's part of you.