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Back at the apartment, I kicked off my heels and walked barefoot across the cold marble floor.
The woman in the mirror had perfect makeup and not a single hair out of place, but her eyes were as empty as a stranger’s.
I went to the study and took the oak display box out of the safe.
It was my wedding gift to Julian five years ago.
Not a ring—he’d already given me a five-carat Tiffany diamond.
It was this box, filled with ninety-nine custom-made baseball cards.
“Baseball gives you three strikes,” I’d said, my fingers gliding over the smooth cards. “I’m giving you ninety-nine. As long as there’s one card left in this box, I’ll stay.”
Julian had laughed then, that same smile that made Fortune photographers go wild. He kissed my forehead, his voice sincere. “Darling, I’ll never even use one.”
Five years later, the box was nearly empty.
What was once full was now a hollow space with only a few cards left at the bottom.
I pulled out card number 98. It had a picture of the sunset at Fenway Park on the front. On the back, in gold foil, were the words: “Strike 98.”
I fed it into the paper shredder. As the card turned into confetti, my phone buzzed.
It was a text from Julian:
【Honey, there’s a problem with the company servers. Have to pull an all-nighter. Don’t wait up. Use a strike for this, on me. I’ll bring home your favorite strawberry cream cake in the morning.】
I stared at the screen, the letters twisting into strange shapes.
As I turned, my elbow hit the console table by the entrance. Our wedding photo, which had sat there for five years, crashed to the floor.
Amid the sharp crack of shattering crystal, the photo of us was split by a web of fractures. His smile was broken into three pieces, my white veil stained by the shadows of the glass.
I bent down, not to pick up the frame, but to grab my phone from the floor.
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