Reminiscent

“I don’t love you anymore, Jon” he said, reaching for a Paula Red that hung off a thinning browning branch. The words themselves attacked my senses, a fight or flight response was beginning to form from that sentence alone. I felt my fingers digging into my palm, the violent feeling of blood rushing through my hands turning my skin the same color as the fruit. 

After a moment of trying to process my next response, I spat out something driven purely by confusion, “I want to know why!” 

The young family near us stopped in their tracks, their child’s spittle hung from their chin like a metronome. We locked eyes for a moment, the mother and I. Her eyes told me how private of a matter this seemed, but I focused back on the back Morgan’s teal Patagonia. Their footsteps hinted at urgency, whispers of “let’s go this way” and “what exactly was that” trail away in the warmth of the September air. 

“Are you done making a fool of yourself, now?” The nonchalant way he said that was almost mocking, it hadn’t felt like that when we spoke before. I tend to think of our pillowtalk as our most comfortable, and his behavior didn’t match up with the almost serene glow he had prior. 

I stepped on the auburn leaves near his boots, taking a stance almost like Hamlet with the skull of Horatio, a nearby unripe McIntosh as the unsubtle replacement. 

“Lo, how thou art such a nihilistic nuisance, a truly petty-”

“Your performance is phoned in, like last time.” I threw the apple at the back of his head, a pitch my brother would ridicule me for during our childhood. It failed to catch Morgan’s attention, but he stood from his crouch and patted dirt off his dark denim jeans. He had told me when I bought them they were a size too big, and I assured him that he would grow into it living with me. He began walking ahead, straying further away with small crunches beneath his feet. 

“Are we not going to talk more about this?” I followed him through the orchard, ignored all attempts he made of keeping our voices hushed. “Amber’s party is in three hours, I’d like it if we still went together!” 

He cut into my tirade like all the other times, a simple “We will.” I wasn’t pleased with that, in my head at the time I felt it wasn’t sincere. Or worse, knowing me then, I felt I deserved something from him. 

“Then why are you trying to hurt me like this?!” I pushed him toward one of the saplings, he tumbled over and hit his head on the supple soil below. He just stared at me, his act at being calm and collected broke for just a moment. A fire in his eyes lit as he jumped to his feet and socked me across the jaw. I held my hand there for a moment, a mix of genuine pain and the effort to instill guilt in Morgan motivated me to continue our argument. 

“Does it hurt?” His soft voice said it in a way that immediately told me his opinion on the matter: utter indifference. I revoked my hand from its place and shoved it in my overcoat pockets, the sting keeping my cheek red in the breeze.

I continued to stay with him through most of our little excursion, I stayed silent from that moment on because I knew there was something not right about the situation. I wasn’t winning this argument, I wasn’t enjoying the time we were spending because I wasn’t his focus. I didn’t like this feeling, like I was finally being thrown away by him. At the time I thought he could tell, purposefully trying to ruin my mood and our life together because of some grander plot I had no idea of. 

I assumed aliens, or some kind of cult meant to ruin autumn days like these between loving couples. I wasn’t aware of how Morgan actually felt, I didn’t take the time to see that he stopped paying rent, or actively avoided going to clubs with the rest of our group from then. Or that his brother died nine months before he told me how he fell out of love, tried suffocating the feeling of grief and dread through journals I found months after this October day. 

“Why can’t I even pay for the stupid little things?” I referred to the bundle of assorted red apples with disdain while trying to sort out my own thoughts, in the process of doing mental gymnastics, trying to alter my memories to make him at fault for most issues. Most of those issues were my fault to begin with, obviously, but the blame game was what I played back then. He paid for the apples, and I allowed it out of purely to make him suffer in some way. I bragged to myself “at least his wallet felt it,” instead of acting mature and paying half myself. 

As we left the orchard and silently made our way into the parking lot, I tried holding back a scream that would then echo inside my Honda Civic. It’s funny thinking how I was the one who drove us, yet he was the one who took us back to the apartment. Yelling at him during our trek back to Queens, I let out every bad word I really knew. I knew far more than he realized, which made me feel good when I saw him suddenly shake at a stoplight. 

And then, as we turned into that large tower that cost too much for a parking pass, he told me what he actually needed to say: “I’m leaving Monday. I packed everything, and I don’t know when I’ll be back.” 

When Monday came and the apples digested, we embraced only for a few seconds. And as he walked away, I yelled to him “I love you, idiot.” I could tell from how his shoulders drooped he felt the same, but never spoke back.

And with the passing of a city bus, he had left my life for good.