The Last Inning

The goldfish bowl sat on the nightstand, its solitary inhabitant darting through neon-colored gravel like it was still searching for an escape. Marcus hadn't wanted the fish. It was Sarah's idea, something about 'building a home together' after they moved into the apartment with the peeling paint and the radiator that screamed like a dying animal every morning.

He should have known then.

Instead, he was sitting in section 214, the orange sunset bleeding across the sky like a bruise, watching the baseball game he'd bought tickets for three months ago. Sarah beside him, wearing that dress — the one that clung in all the right places, the one she'd worn on their first date at that overpriced seafood place where she'd laughed at his terrible jokes and ordered something exotic.

'This is nice,' she said, but her eyes kept drifting to her phone in her lap.

'Bull,' he thought but didn't say.

The pitcher wound up, threw something unhittable. The crowd roared. Marcus thought about swimming — how he'd almost drowned at age twelve, how the water had filled his lungs like liquid glass, how his father had hauled him up by the back of his shirt, coughing and spluttering, and said, 'You're too stubborn to die, kid.'

That same stubbornness had kept him with Sarah through six months of distance, through cancelled dates, through 'working late' and 'just too tired tonight.' Through the night he'd come home early and found her sitting on their balcony, smoking, looking out at the city lights like she was waiting for something better to come along.

'Marcus?' Sarah's voice cut through his thoughts. 'I've been thinking.'

The goldfish would be dead within a week. He knew this with the same certainty he knew she was about to say something that would hollow him out like a jack-o-lantern.

'I think we should—'

The batter connected. The ball arced toward them, impossibly orange against the darkening sky. For a moment, time suspended — the fish in its bowl, the couple in their seats, the curve of fate itself hanging in the air. Then it landed twenty rows back, and somewhere, someone laughed.

'Bullshit,' Marcus said, and for the first time in six months, he meant something real.