The Ninth Inning Riddle

The baseball game droned on—bottom of the ninth, two outs, and Marc still hadn't looked at me once. Not that he could see much from behind his phone, anyway. His iPhone glowed like a shrine in the dim sports bar, its light catching the hollows beneath his eyes.

I'd known something was wrong for weeks. The sphinx had nothing on Marc—same inscrutable smile, same impossible riddles wrapped in silence. What does a man who used to whisper poetry against your neck become when he starts sleeping with his phone beside his pillow, face up, like a sentry?

'You gonna eat that?' He pointed at my untouched fries, finally tearing his gaze away from whatever held him captive on that screen.

'No.' I slid the plate toward him. 'Who's texting you, Marc?'

The question hung between us like a foul ball paused in mid-air. He didn't answer. Just chewed slowly, methodically, jaw working the way it did when he was hiding something—or maybe I was seeing patterns where there were only shadows. That's what gaslighting does to you. It makes you question your own memory, your own instincts.

The bartender announced last call. The baseball game ended in a loss.

'Work,' Marc said finally, wiping grease from his lips. 'It's just work, Sarah. You know how the merger's been.' He reached for my hand across the sticky table, and I let him take it. His palm was warm, familiar. The same hand I'd held through three moves, two funerals, and one miscarriage. 'I promise. It's just work.'

But something had shifted in his voice—almost imperceptible, like the moment a pitcher loses his groove. The next morning, while he showered, I did what I swore I wouldn't. I opened his phone.

The messages weren't from work. They were from her—someone named 'S' with an enigmatic profile photo. And the dates. God, the dates went back six months before the merger. Back to when he'd started pulling away, when he'd begun guarding his phone like it held state secrets.

The sphinx's riddle solved: What looks like love from the outside but rots from within?

I closed his phone. Placed it exactly where I'd found it, screen down. The baseball tickets for next month's game sat on the counter, a gift I'd bought weeks ago. Some traditions you don't break. Not until you're ready to walk away for good.