Coming Home Again
She could’ve sworn it was just the wind. Abby closed her eyes when she heard Kate and smiled.
“What’s not going to work?” she asked with her eyes trained on home plate.
“We’re never going to be a memory or long-lost friends.”
Abby slowly turned to face her. Blue eyes and all that light, even as the sun disappeared. She clutched the chain-link fence and leaned in so that her forehead nearly brushed it. So that she might’ve kissed her if it weren’t for the final partition.
“You weren’t really going to let me leave without saying goodbye, were you?” Kate’s mouth twitched with a slight frown.
Her brow folded together. “I’m sorry. I’m just tired of goodbyes.”
“Then don’t go.” Kate’s eyes glistened when Abby found them again. “I know you have work and a new life, but I want to be part of it. I’ve always wanted to be part of it. Part of you.”
Abby smiled. “You always were.”
“Then stay?” Kate asked, her throat bobbing ever so slightly. “Stay this time. Quit going away. I know you’re chasing the game or the next baseball messiah, but—”
“I’m not,” Abby said with a slight laugh, if only to hide her blush. “I was chasing you. Looking for that love you played with on every field.” She rubbed a thumb across Kate’s hand on the fence. “I should’ve known I just had to come back here.”
They met each other halfway, with unhurried steps, and when they stood across from each other, Abby knew the timing was finally right.
Their foreheads met first. And when they kissed, beneath the stadium lights, it was slower.
Kinder. Unlike the sloppy passion of Las Vegas or the timidity of their first. It landed full and strong, but tender, because that’s who they were now.
When the same happy tears that made them laugh rolled into their kisses, when they could have no more of each other on the open field, when the sky fell dark, they sat against the backstop and stared up at the hills. Kate rested her head against her shoulder, and Abby held her hand.
“I can see it,” she whispered.
Bickering, morning coffee, scrambling to work, long runs, surfing new coasts.
A future without children. A future with them.
Abby could even see that, despite never letting herself before.
Blue-eyed and swinging a bat. She saw a band on Kate’s finger, one on her own.
She heard vows somewhere. A courthouse, a beach, anywhere with their friends.
Their real family. She heard all the right things.
No ringing. Just laughter, whispers, tears, and love, over and over again.
She saw them at twenty-two and thirty-two.
She saw them at fifty, seventy, a hundred.
“I see it too,” Kate said.
She saw the field. Saw them on it forever.