The Loneliest Game

Mara watched the baseball game alone in her apartment, the sound muted so she wouldn't wake the goldfish in its bowl on the windowsill. She'd won it at a carnival three years ago with David, back when they still went to carnivals, back when winning a cheap prize felt like a promise.

Her iphone buzzed on the coffee table. David's name lit up the screen.

She stared at it until it stopped, then picked it up, thumb hovering over his contact. The cable guy was supposed to come between noon and four. It was already six. She'd been waiting all day for someone who wasn't coming.

The baseball players trotted across the muted diamond, an endless game that went nowhere. Like them, she was running bases she'd already circled countless times before.

She opened her messages with David. The last one was from Tuesday: 'We need to talk.' She'd been avoiding talking for six years. Why start now?

The goldfish rose to the surface, mouth opening and closing in silent repetition. She'd read somewhere they had three-second memories. Sometimes she wished she could be that lucky — to wake up every moment fresh, without the weight of everything she'd failed to change.

Her finger slipped and called him instead of typing.

'Hello?' His voice. Still the same.

'The cable guy never came,' she said.

Silence on the line. Then, 'Mara, we can't keep doing this.'

'I know.' She watched the baseball player slide into home, safe by an inch. 'I'm just tired of everything being over.'

'It's been over for a long time. We're both just pretending.' He paused. 'Are you still at the apartment?'

'Where else would I be?'

'I'm coming over.'

'To talk.'

'To move out. For real this time.'

She looked at the goldfish, at the muted game, at the iphone burning against her ear. 'Okay,' she said. 'But you should know — I think the fish is dying too.'

He laughed, and she realized she hadn't heard that sound in months.

'Then we'll give it a proper sendoff,' he said. 'Together.'

She hung up and muted the television. For the first time in years, the apartment was completely silent.