The Seventh Inning Stretch

Mara stood at the edge of the pier, her iPhone clutched in her hand like a guilty secret. The screen glowed with a message she'd been avoiding for three days: *Can we talk?* From Daniel. Daniel, who had walked out of their apartment two weeks ago with nothing but a baseball glove and a duffel bag.

The water below moved in restless dark currents, reflecting the bruised purple of twilight. She'd come here because this was where they'd first met—little league game, overpriced beer, his terrible joke about how baseball was just cricket with attention deficit disorder. She'd laughed. She'd fallen in love with a man who treated relationships like extra innings: always extending, never concluding, keeping score until someone inevitably lost.

Her phone buzzed again. Another message: *I'm at the field. Where we watched that championship game. Remember?*

She did remember. The watermelon glow of sunset, the crack of the bat, his hand warm on her thigh, whispering predictions about pitches he didn't understand. She remembered thinking: this is what happiness feels like—simple, present,不需要 translation.

Now her thumb hovered over the block button. Instead, she opened her photos. Hundreds of screenshots: baseball scores she'd sent him, ticket stubs from games they'd attended, a video of him attempting to catch a foul ball and spilling beer all over that woman's front-row seat. The woman had laughed. Daniel had bought her a replacement beer. That was the thing about him—he made mistakes, but he owned them.

Until he didn't.

The pier lights flickered on. Below, the water caught the reflection in broken shards of gold. She thought about how they'd bought matching iPhones on their first anniversary, how he'd programmed his ringtone as the baseball organ charge tune. She hadn't had the heart to change it after he left.

Her phone chimed. *I still have your glove. The one you left at my place. The water stain from when we got caught in that storm after the double-header? I can't stop looking at it.*

Mara's throat tightened. She remembered that rain—running through the parking lot, his jacket over both their heads, laughing like idiots, their gloves soaked through because neither would leave them behind. The water stains were still there on the leather. Perfect circles. Like halos.

She typed: *Which field?*

*The one near the river. Where the homeless guy always tries to sell us stolen peanuts.*

Mara slipped her iPhone into her pocket and began walking toward the baseball stadium three blocks away. Some games went into extra innings. Some were worth finishing, no matter the score.