The Orchard's Language

The orchard wasn’t theirs. It had never been. The fences were splintered, peeling white like old scabs, and the signs were long gone, rotted out and swinging by a single nail. But the girls had stopped noticing those details. They’d slipped past that place between trespass and belonging, like a cherry pit spat into high grass.

They were girls the way fireflies were girls—just barely, flickering, in motion. The air that summer was honey-thick and humming with cicadas, and the sun seemed to hang a little longer than usual, bloated and slow, like it didn’t want to miss anything.

Juniper was always first. She knew which slats in the fence gave a little, which branches wouldn’t break beneath her sneakers. Her knees were already scraped from the climb, pink and glistening. Some part of her was always bleeding.

The other girl followed quieter, always quieter. She’d taken to wearing white in summer, like she wanted to disappear into the sky. She didn't bleed anymore. Juniper never asked about that.

They met in the orchard each day when the light began to turn syrupy. The apples had gone overripe weeks ago, too sweet and soft, skins splitting open like secrets. The bees were drunk on the sugar, weaving slow golden spells between the branches.

“Which one’s your favourite?” Juniper asked one afternoon, crouched beneath the low belly of a pear tree, chewing idly on a blade of grass. Her legs were long and tangled like vines, scabbed and glittering with bits of dirt. “You can’t say the peaches again. That’s cheating.”

“I wasn’t going to,” the other girl murmured. Her voice was always a little damp, like she’d just been crying or just finished laughing. She sat with her legs folded neatly, not touching the ground even though they were on it. “Plums, maybe.”

Juniper tilted her head. “Why?”

“They rot the prettiest.” She said it like it was the most natural thing in the world, like talking about the way petals bruise or moth wings dust your fingers. Juniper blinked slowly, then smiled, small and sharp.

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, they do.”

They didn't talk about school anymore. Or the way the town’s eyes followed them when they walked together, too close, too much. They didn’t talk about last winter. They didn’t talk about the shed with the rusted latch. Or the January night when the air smelled like copper and rain. They didn’t talk about mothers who whispered too loud and fathers who didn’t come home.

Instead, they talked about fruit. About the way peaches bruise if you press too hard. About the little crescent moons their nails left in the skin. About the ripeness that came with heat, the way the orchard sighed beneath it all.

Juniper liked to climb, even when the branches bent under her weight, even when the bark bit into her palms. “Bet I can reach the top this time,” she called, halfway up a gnarled apple tree. The apples were sickly sweet, half-eaten by worms. She plucked one anyway and took a bite, juice running down her chin.

The other girl lay back in the grass, arms folded behind her head. “Bet you fall.”

“Bet I don’t.”

She didn’t fall, but when she jumped down, her ankle twisted, and she hissed through her teeth.

“You okay?” the girl asked, propping herself up on her elbows.

Juniper grinned, mouth red with fruit. “I’m always okay.”

That wasn’t true. Not entirely.

Some days, she came to the orchard shaking. Eyes red-rimmed, palms trembling. But the other girl never asked why. She just held out a peach, overripe and golden, and Juniper would bite into it like it was the answer to everything. The orchard became their language. A soft one, all juice and teeth and sunburns. They painted each other in pulp and pollen, smeared watermelon across their cheeks like war paint, pressed cherry stems between their lips until they tied themselves in knots.

“Do you remember the first time we came here?” Juniper asked one day, lying with her head in the other girl’s lap.

The girl threaded fingers through Juniper’s sweat-damp hair. “Mhm. You had a bee in your hair and screamed like a banshee.”

“You laughed at me.”

“You cried.”

They both smiled. A long pause stretched between them, like a note held too long.

“Do you think we’ll still come here next summer?” Juniper asked, eyes closed.

The girl didn’t answer right away. A breeze stirred the branches, shaking loose a rain of petals and tiny unripe plums.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Why not?”

Another pause. The sun was starting to dip, bleeding gold across the leaves.

“Things change.”

Juniper opened her eyes. “You always say that.”

“It’s always true.”

“Do you want to leave?” Her voice was tight, almost angry. “Are you gonna leave me?”

The girl didn’t flinch. She looked down at Juniper, brushing her thumb across her temple. “I’m already gone.”

Juniper sat up too fast. Her face was flushed, streaked with dirt and something wetter. “Don’t say that.”

“I didn’t,” the girl said softly.

Juniper didn’t speak for a while. The orchard thrummed around them—bees, wind, a distant birdcall. The sky was thickening, turning lavender and bruised. “I hate it when you talk like that.”

“I know.”

Juniper pulled a plum from a nearby branch, crushed it in her fist. The juice was dark, almost black, sticky between her fingers. It ran down her wrist and into the crook of her elbow. She didn’t wipe it away.

“Do you ever miss it?” she asked. Her voice was barely more than breath.

The girl tilted her head. “Miss what?”

“Anything.”

Silence.

Then: “I miss the cold. Not when it’s happening, but … after. I miss how sharp it was.”

Juniper nodded. “I miss your laugh.”

The girl looked down. Her hands were too pale. The grass didn’t bend beneath her fingers.

“I still laugh,” she said.

Juniper didn’t reply.

They sat together as the orchard dimmed. The fruit glowed faintly in the dusk, overripe and beautiful. A fox slipped through the trees, low and silent. The air was beginning to cool.

Juniper reached out, fingers brushing the girl’s wrist. “Your skin’s cold.”

“It always is now.”

Another silence. This one heavier. The cicadas had gone quiet.

“I keep waking up thinking you’re next to me,” Juniper said. “I reach out, and it’s just—sheets.”

The girl didn’t move. Her eyes were wide and full of something too old to name.

“I never said goodbye,” Juniper whispered.

“You did,” the girl replied. “You just don’t remember.”

A pear fell from a high branch, thudding softly into the grass.

Juniper laughed, and it cracked in the middle.

“Do you want me to stop coming?” she asked.

The girl looked at her like she was made of smoke. “You can’t.”

Juniper stood slowly, brushing dirt from her knees. She was taller now. Stronger. But she still looked like a child in the orchard. Like the summer hadn’t ended, like it never would.

The girl remained on the ground, legs curled beneath her, white dress unwrinkled.

“Will I see you tomorrow?” Juniper asked.

The girl smiled, soft and sad. “You always do.”

The orchard whispered around them. The fruit sagged on its branches, swollen and sweet. The air pulsed with the memory of heat.

Juniper stepped back, one foot behind the other. “I’ll bring peaches.”

“I’ll rot prettily,” the girl replied.

Juniper laughed again, but this time it was softer. She turned, walking back through the grass. Her footsteps left no path. She didn’t look back. Behind her, the orchard held its breath.

And the girl, who might have been dead—or maybe only waiting—watched her go.

Her eyes were wet. Her skin was cold. And the fruit on the trees kept ripening, kept splitting, kept falling.