Stubborn Apple

The day she decided to leave town left a guttural feeling of dismay within myself. We had been best friends since the third grade. We knew each other’s deepest darkest secrets and never judged one another for any mistakes or things said. That summer she left she’d decided she needed to better herself and college was the thing she felt she needed to complete in order to further herself in life. I didn’t judge her for that but perhaps I felt bitter as she was my only connection to anyone. I’ve been that way for as long as I can remember. I don’t do well in big groups but thrive in small ones and she was my small group. 

 Her name is Hera, which in her culture means queen. God forbid you treat her anything less than that! She’s stubborn but not in an overbearing way, she knows what she wants and how she needs to get it. I’ve always admired that aspect of her. It’s one of the things that has made me fall for her over the years. She has long black hair that drapes past her breasts with bright brown eyes that she complains about on a constant basis. “I’ve got the eye color of literal shit,” is her go to phrase whenever someone compliments her eye color. It used to anger me but now makes me cackle like a damn chicken. She’s got a personality that makes people gravitate towards her and linger for their chance to get to know her but over the years it’s only pushed us closer to one another. She’s always been a bit quick witted and a bit petty. Those two attributes seem to attract the worst and best sorts of people that she’s able to filter through in an impressively quick way.

 Back to the day she left though. On that day I awoke with high spirits as we had plans to hike all morning at Enchanted Rock. I had been looking forward to it for months. We’d done a lot of research together on which state park in Texas to visit and that’s the one we locked in together. I got up early and was ready by 6:00 am sharp. We had initially agreed that she would pick me up by 6:15 so we could grab breakfast on the way but that time came and passed. By 7:00 she still hadn’t arrived. I decided to check on her Snapchat to see if she had posted anything on her way to my house only to find that she was on her way to a college that was 12 hours from where I lived. She had never mentioned once that she wanted to attend college. 

 Immediately I snatched my phone from my bedside table as I needed an explanation. I searched her name in my contacts and hit the call button. She picked up on the second ring in a cheery mood.

 “Oh hello! How’re you doing?” She blurted in the phone in a stuttered voice as if she’d been drinking. “Waiting for you to show up,” I had said angrily. “Oh shit, I thought I told you I had other plans today!” She said as if she’d just misplaced a sock in the wrong drawer, not that she neglected she was moving to a different state for four years for college. Fuck her I had thought in that moment. How could she think this was all okay? “No, you neglected to tell me you even enrolled in college. How could you not tell me something like that? Fuck you, I hate you so much right now!” I immediately regretted my words but couldn’t take them back. I was so used to getting taken advantage by people in general as well as her at times. She could be so aggravating but I knew I could truly never hate her at my core center of being. She was too special of a person to me, but she didn’t know that at the time. 

 That was our last conversation that we had that year, along with the next four years. I hadn’t heard a word from her, not even an update as she’d blocked me from all social media platforms. At first I minded a lot and couldn’t think of anything except for her and what could have played out between us. You see, over the years, I’d developed a fondness for her that she was unaware of at nobody’s expense for my own. 

 Over those four years she was gone I was able to grow exponentially as a person. I even became engrossed in gardening, so much so that I hadn’t noticed she arrived back in town. Let alone in my apple tree garden one early morning. I was checking the moisture levels of my garden when I noticed a tall familiar woman looking longingly at the apples growing from some of my trees. I shouted out that she was on private property and didn’t belong here. She shot me a sly grin and said,”that’s no way to treat your best friend.” I walked over to her in a rage. How could she think that’s an appropriate way to interact with me after her betrayal. “How would you know how to treat a best friend?” That’s the best reply I could muster the courage to say. She seemed to study me for ages, every crease and furrow of my brow. Calmly, she stepped forward a few paces and said, “Why do you think I came back? We live in the country, there is nothing here for you or I. Fuck me for wanting to experience something new!” I couldn’t help but laugh. 

  How could she not see how bad she wronged me? “That’s fine, you want to have new experiences but don’t make plans and blow me off, let alone not even tell me about important life decisions you make! We were best friends, did that not mean anything to you?” I was crying, no, bawling at this point. I had no words left inside me, only pain. She looked at me with watery eyes and said,”you don’t even know why I left, my father found a note I wrote for you confessing that I’ve loved you for years, in more than a platonic sense. I wasn’t allowed back home until I graduated college Idunn! I had no choice.”

  I was gobsmacked. All of a sudden I had clammy hands and cold sweats. “How do I know you’re telling me the truth? Not just telling me something I want to hear?” I had said to her in a quieted tone as I only half wanted her to hear me. She gave me her widest sly grin, leaned in closer to me, grabbed my chin and kissed me hard as if she was trying to breath in fresh air. I parted from her lips and said that, ”everything is changing, where do we even go from here?”