The Seventh Inning Stretch

The papaya margarita had gone warm in my hand, the salt on the rim dissolving into a sticky mess that matched the humidity of the July afternoon. Roger hadn't noticed. He was leaning forward in his seat, his baseball cap pulled low, eyes fixed on the field as if the outcome of this bottom-of-the-ninth matchup could somehow redeem the three hollow years we'd spent together.

I watched the back of his neck, the way his hair curled damp against his collar. He used to let me run my fingers through it, back when we still touched each other with intention rather than habit. Now everything between us felt like a performance — arguments rehearsed, apologies staged, sex mechanical. We were both running on fumes, neither willing to admit the tank was empty.

The woman behind us leaned forward and asked if anyone needed anything from the concession stand. Her voice was kind, unknowing. I shook my head.

"You okay?" Roger asked, finally turning to look at me. His eyes were the same warm brown that had made me forgive him the first time he forgot my birthday, the first time he canceled plans last-minute, the first time I caught him in a lie that we both pretended hadn't happened.

"Fine," I said.

Above the field, the electronic display board — that modern sphinx of circuits and lights — flashed the score. We were losing by three runs. Not that it mattered. Roger would complain about it on the drive home, then again tomorrow, then again next week. His disappointments had become the wallpaper of our life together.

The batter swung and missed. The crowd groaned.

"I can't do this anymore," I said, so quietly that for a moment I thought I hadn't spoken aloud.

Roger shifted in his seat. He didn't ask what I meant. He didn't turn toward me. He just watched as the next pitch was thrown, as if the game could continue, as if everything could continue, as if we could both keep pretending that love hadn't ended months ago in a kitchen at 2 AM over a fight about dishwasher loading that was really about how we'd stopped seeing each other entirely.

The hat I wore — his team's colors — suddenly felt heavy on my head. A costume I'd outgrown.

I stood up. The papaya margarita was still half-full. I didn't want it. I didn't want this seat, this game, this carefully curated version of a life that was slowly suffocating me.

"Stay," Roger said, finally turning. But his eyes were already back on the field. He didn't mean it. We both knew he didn't mean it.

I walked up the aisle toward the exit, moving against the current of fans pressing forward for the ninth inning. Behind me, the sphinx of the scoreboard flickered. Some part of me hoped he would follow.

He didn't. And the deeper tragedy, I realized as I stepped into the parking lot and the hot air hit my face, was that I wasn't even surprised.