The Seventh Inning Stretch

The corporate ladder had turned out to be more like a treadmill—endless motion without forward progress. Sarah sat in section 204, Fenway Park's green monster looming above her like a literal wall between her and anything resembling joy. She'd become what her colleagues jokingly called a zombie: present but not there, answering emails on autopilot, surviving on caffeine and the dwindling hope that something would change.

"You're wearing it again," Mark said, gesturing to the faded red **baseball** cap she'd pulled from her purse. It had been David's—her ex-husband's—who'd left three years ago for a younger woman who still believed in dreams.

"It's good luck," Sarah lied. The cap smelled like stale beer and memory, like the summer they'd conceived the child she'd lost six months along, like the person she used to be before grief hollowed her out.

Mark's hand brushed hers as he reached for his beer. Electricity, unexpected and terrifying. They'd been working together eighteen months, and somehow in the fluorescent purgatory of their open-plan office, he'd become the only real thing in her life. The only person who saw her instead of through her.

"My dad's a zombie too now," Mark said quietly, watching the pitcher wind up. "Early onset. He forgets my name half the time. But he remembers every World Series since 1967."

Sarah's chest tightened. "That's... that's really fucked up, Mark."

"Yeah." He laughed, dark and hollow. "But he's happier than I've ever been."

The stadium erupted. A home run. strangers high-fived. In the chaos, Mark's hand found hers again and stayed. His palm was warm, calloused, terrifyingly alive. For the first time in three years, Sarah felt something besides numbness crack open inside her.

"I'm tired of being dead," she whispered, not looking at him.

"Then let's live," Mark said.

The game didn't matter. The corporate zombies waiting in their gray cubicles didn't matter. What mattered was this moment, this choice, this terrifying possibility that some parts of you could wake up again.

She squeezed his hand back.