i go apple picking.

i go apple picking. 

    he drives. because he always drives. i know the way that he drives as well as i know the roads behind my childhood home. the winding, long winded roads built for speed and sad songs that play on loop. the roads that i have spilled my heart to too many nights because they listen and learn the repetition of my shredded tires. the roads that memorized my first car crash, which stained their gravel with shrapnel and my parents’ hearts with disappointment. yes, these roads have known my patterns, my abrupt steering, my swift swirls. 

but he drives now. he drives with caution and precision, for he does not know the roads the way that i do. he is unfamiliar with their turns and curves and takes each tilt with suspicion, too carefully. he is scared he’ll hurt the car, that the car will hurt me and, therefore, that he will hurt me. he drives as gently as he speaks and knows me as well as he knows the roads: not very well at all.

we have a slight inkling towards a destination. we had a slight fight over a destination. he wants to go home to his parents for the weekend. they have apple trees there, he says, we can go apple picking there. i want to go somewhere new. somewhere neither of us have any familiarity with, somewhere we can learn together. they’ll have apple tress there, i say, we can go apple picking there. 

yet, we packed the car with no resolution. as he steers and i stare out the window, i wonder where we are going. we sit in the stillest silence and let the radio tell us how to feel. music has always been indicative of my emotions, i feel them change with the tones and the emphasis of each instrument. when i have my roads and i have my music, i am drawn inward. i am identified as my own person, so i guess it doesn’t matter where we end up. wherever we arrive to, i will have myself. 

he has his caution and his apple picking. his fond memories of his infancy when fall was new and colors were bright for the first time. he changes with seasons just as i change with the music. it is during fall when he is the most complete. when he understands himself fully. when his caution is at its height. when our conflict peaks.

we’ll do both, he says and breaks the soft silence. we’ll see my parents saturday and drive to wherever sunday morning. we’ll do that. okay?

erase my autonomy, okay, i say. i hate your parents. 

he stills the car again with a breath. he has made up his mind and he is the one behind the wheel, so i accept his proposal with my own combative silence. we fight in the quiet all the way into the driveway where the road begins to become choppy, uneven. he slows even more, careful of the bumps in the road and pieces of broken rock that scatter the landscape. he cannot hurt the car. the car must stay in tact. we must stay in tact.

he parks. he walks up to his parents’ door. he knocks. he walks in. i sit in the car. i sit to protest. i sit and i wait and i wait and i wait. i wait three hours in his car. i wait until he becomes frustrated with my objective quietness and comes back out to usher me inside. 

you can’t always get your way, he says.

i can’t believe you brought her for the weekend, his mother says. 

not the whole weekend. just one night. to go apple picking, he says. 

his mother sighs and resigns herself to the solitude of any room i don’t exist in. 

try, he says.

and i do. i reach into the highest branches and pull the reddest apples down. i pick as many apples as i can reach. i spend the day in his parents’ orchard, apple picking. i swallow my saturday away and shut my mouth and pick his parents’ apples. he can sense my angst, but he doesn’t comment. he’s just proud to see my engagement with his preference. i think he expected a fit, a child’s tantrum and that is why he is so impressed. so pleased. 

his mother wants to make a pie. an apple pie. she doesn’t want my help, but she accepts it. she does it for him. i do it for him. we loathe each other in silence over the mixing of the butter, sugar, and eggs. we cut up apples side by side and she thinks of slicing my finger and i hers. he doesn’t know we think these things. he’s just too happy to be home and apple picking. he thinks we’re getting along this time. if only he knew.

i think she’s going to poison me. like snow white, i say to him.

can you be more mature? just try, jesus, he says. 

we’re fed up with each other now. he wishes he hadn’t gotten his way now. he wishes we’d skipped his parents and just run somewhere else, somewhere far away, somewhere where apple picking isn’t a competition and where it doesn’t breed fear and terror. he wishes we were where i wished we were supposed to be. he wishes i wasn’t here at all. he wishes i’d stayed in the car.

we leave early and as the car spirals away from the rocky driveway, i stick my finger out the window. he doesn’t see. he just focuses on the street ahead of him. the street that glitters with gold and crimson leaves from the biggest trees in the neighborhood. he remembers when they were the biggest trees in the world. when his mother approved of everything he did. when apple picking was something to look forward to.

i pretend to fall asleep beside him to avoid the inevitable fight we’ve been on the breach of all weekend. i let silence and the darkness of my eyelids overtake my fading sense of self. i wonder what it is that his mother hates so much about me. i wonder why i care. i wonder if it’ll always be that way. i know he wonders the same things. it’s because of her he hasn’t bought a ring. it’s because of her that he still says we’re living apart. it’s because of her that apple picking is bitter to us both now.

the jerk of his wheels over unfamiliar terrain pretends to wake me up. he hates to be lost, to not know where to turn next. he has no sense of improvisation and i can see it on his face. he is nervous now, nauseous even. he loves his memorized roads as much as i love mine, but he fears the unknown ones as much as i crave to discover them. i see our differences light up and i join him in his nervousness.

i’m lost. i don’t know where to go, he says.

me too, i say. but i’m quiet this time. 

do we—

call it quits?

he stops the car in the middle of the empty road. the empty road leading up to an apple orchard. the one we’ve been seeking. the one that was supposed to answer all my questions. the one that we were destined to discover. the one with the big, big trees that stand sturdy under the blue, blue sky. the one with the leaves dancing like tiny ballerinas across the mossy undergroves. 

he stares ahead in silence. then begins to drive up closer to the trees. he thinks this will fix it. he thinks if we pick some apples, like i demanded, we will be okay. he thinks he may have heard me wrong. he thinks a lot of things while my thoughts move empty through my head.

we step into the chilly air and we pick some apples. i don’t pick them with the fervor i had earlier. i pick them with stillness and silence. i count the seconds as i pull the branches down and memorize the moments as i pick each fruit. i start to think about him when he was you. 

i see us spinning in your kitchen, wine drunk.

i see us the first time we held hands.

i see us the first time you drove us around the smallest town in the world.

i see us apple picking. 

i see us in the corner of another perspective’s eye. i see you lifting me up to the highest branches and holding me close to you so i don’t fall. i see you avoiding your mother’s comments. i see you choosing my weekend instead of yours. i see you wanting me and longing for me. i see you.

but you have left me with him. apple picking. the car engine continues to run as we stand side by side, but with enough distance to distinguish him from you. he picks his last apple and throws it to the ground. i watch it hit the grass and roll far, far away. i begin to run towards it, ignoring the frigid wind and the sound of your voice calling me back. i chase it through the orchard, running until i’m hot and i’m sweating. 

when i catch up, it’s muddy. it’s been through the dirt and the grass and the leaves and i don’t care. i kneel to pick it up, cleaning the exterior on my clothes until it’s bright and shiny and burgundy again. i smile and smile and smile at the apple. it tastes nothing like the ones at his parents’ house, it tastes like fresh, sweet air and the color of the setting sun. i live in the silence and chew on the apple until i reach the core.

i see his headlights flashing brightly. i watch them for awhile. i think about him for awhile. if i should walk back, if i should wait for him to walk over. so many little ifs. so many what ifs. eventually, his headlights head out and i realize he understands me finally. his radio sounds bittersweet and my absence reminds him of who he was before i was present.

but i don’t think about him. no. i go apple picking.