Blood Orange Periphery

23. Naomi's Apple

Naomi ate a delicious apple and messaged me about it.

For her to savour something ordinary, and then share that moment with me, felt like the greatest honour. She took a fruit and made it extraordinary by choosing to place it in my hands.

To this day, I think of that apple as proof of why we are friends —quickly followed by the reasons we shouldn't be. She hates swimming, dislikes animals and isn't too fond of nature either. But to paint those as red flags would be unfair.

Naomi sits on the shore and watches me swim. She would pet Ollie despite her allergies, because Ollie was mine. She stands at a distance, patiently waiting whilst I feed the passive-agressive stag. Joins me on walks in the overgrown castle gardens (albeit with me serving as a human shield against insects). During the months I was too anxious to leave the house, she never complained about visiting me, not when it took her two hours by bus. Not once.

Everyone deserves a Naomi. A friend whose love emerges through quiet compromises.

Of course, there are times she frustrates me, times when her obstinance gets under my skin. She undoubtedly feels the same about me. And the Tuesday she read my Amsterdam pilgrimage to-do-list, I lied through my teeth.

Write letters to my parents, my favourite brother, my cocreator of recent core memories, and to my platonic soulmate, the bulletpoint read. Naomi asked if I would write her a letter too. And I said, yes, yes I will —and that was a lie.

I throw the word love around with reckless abandon; anything less feels like admitting I fall short. Love, to me, has always been calibrated to absence, to missing. I miss my family. I rarely miss anyone else. My test is simple: would I miss them if I moved across the world? Would they cross my mind? If both answers are yes, that's love.

Twenty-seven years since my floundering feet entered this hell, and I realise I was wrong. Because Naomi conjures only one yes, and still, I write this with tears smudging every word. Love is more than missing, more than yeses. It's the Ollie-shaped hole in my chest, the apple I never tasted but felt in Naomi's sharing. It's the way she sits on dry land and watches me do the thing she hates.

I'm not a good friend. I try to be, but I get caught up in myself, in my inherent bindings. I won't write you a letter, but I'll write you a poem, my darling. An attempt at loving you the way I can. Not love in its grandiose form. Not loud or full of missing, but love in the apple.