What We Lost in the Thunder

The baseball stadium lights flickered as rain began to fall, and Emma pressed her palm against the cold glass of the press box window. Below them, the players scattered like insects, their perfect uniforms darkening with every drop.

"We should go," Marcus said, not looking at her. "The lightning's coming."

He said it about everything lately. The lightning's coming. The end is coming. We're running out of time.

Three years of fertility treatments, and Emma's body had become a battlefield — hormones, injections, procedures that left her hollowed out and raw. Marcus had stopped touching her six months ago. He couldn't bear it, he said. Couldn't bear wanting something that hurt this much to want.

"Remember our first date?" she asked. Lightning cracked across the sky, illuminating the empty stadium in stark flashes. "You told me you loved baseball because anything could happen. Bottom of the ninth, two outs, full count — the game's never over until it's over."

Marcus finally turned. His eyes were ancient. "I was twenty-three, Emma. I believed in miracles then."

The storm broke open. Rain sheeted against the glass, blurring the field until the baseball diamond became an impressionist painting, all greens and browns running together like tears.

Emma took his hand — the first time in months — and pressed it to her stomach, flat and empty between them. His palm was warm against hers, his fingers tentative, then curling around her hand with something like desperation.

"I don't want the miracle anymore," she said. "I just want us."

Lightning struck the outfield, brilliant and terrible, and for a moment, everything was illuminated. The field. The empty seats. The weight of what they'd sacrificed at the altar of wanting.

Marcus pulled her into him, and she felt his chest shudder against hers. Outside, the game was over. But something else was beginning.