The Unfinished Season

The papaya sat on my kitchen counter for three days before I threw it away. That was how long it took me to admit that Marcus wasn't coming over for dinner again, that our Tuesday night ritual of cooking something unnecessarily elaborate and complaining about our jobs had become another casualty of whatever happened between us.

We'd been friends since college, back when we played baseball on that intramural team that took ourselves too seriously. Marcus was the shortstop with the throwing arm that could launch a ball from deep left field. I played second base, competent but never spectacular. We were partners on the field and partners in crime off it, drinking cheap beer and laughing about how we'd conquer the world.

But the world has a way of softening your edges. At thirty-seven, Marcus was already divorced and running marathons like he was trying to escape something he couldn't name. I was married to a job that paid well but left me hollow, swimming laps at the community center pool at 5 AM because it was the only time I could hear myself think.

The pool water was always cold, shocking me into clarity. Floating on my back, staring at the fluorescent ceiling, I'd replay our last conversation. We'd been at a bar, both of us slightly drunk, when Marcus said something that hung in the air between us like smoke.

"Remember when we thought we'd actually make a difference?"

I'd shrugged. "We do okay."

He'd looked at me with something like pity. "Do we? Because sometimes I think we're just running in place."

I should've asked him what he meant. I should've told him that I felt it too — this vague but persistent sense that we'd somehow missed the point of everything. Instead I'd said, "You've been training too hard. It's messing with your head."

He'd laughed, but it didn't reach his eyes. That was six months ago.

Now I was swimming alone, baseball games reduced to background noise at sports bars, running on a treadmill that went nowhere. Last week I saw Marcus at the grocery store. He was buying papaya, of all things.

"For that recipe you liked," he'd said, holding it up like evidence of something.

I'd stood there, mouth open, unable to form words. I wanted to say that I missed him, that I was sorry, that I didn't know why we'd stopped being friends but that it felt like the biggest loss of my adult life. Instead I'd nodded and said, "That's nice."

Standing in my kitchen, staring at the rotting fruit, I finally understood. We weren't swimming or running or playing toward anything anymore. We were just moving through the days, waiting for something to change, too afraid to be the one who changed it first.

The papaya went into the trash. Tomorrow, I told myself, tomorrow I'd call him. Tomorrow I'd say what I should have said at that bar, what I should have said at the grocery store. Tomorrow I'd stop running in place.

But tomorrow felt a lot like today, and today felt a lot like yesterday, and the days kept slipping past like water through my fingers, carrying with them all the things I meant to say but never did.