I wrote a love letter to a boy, once. I was nine and in fourth grade: on top of the world. I had liked him in passing for three years. I did not know him well. He was short, but I was too, and thought we would cancel each other out. He was the only one who could recite the times tables faster than me, and he ran a seven minute mile. Every girl in my grade was in love with him. 

 

Tangerine sweet ‒ tangy, sour, unpredictable. Stuck in your mouth. Feel it. Mom would pick off the white stringy bits, the parts that get stuck in your teeth. The veins. Half for me, half for her. Half for her, half for me. For her, for me; for her, for her, for her.

 

I chased the boy around at recess. I ran an eight minute mile. He was constantly out of reach, constantly evasive, keeping beyond my outstretched claws. But I caught him: spring day, and the grass was muddy. Nylon Under Armour shirt, blood-red bunched in my fists. Four eyes: too uncertain, too startled. When I let him go, he fell back into the dirt. I towered above him, girl over boy. We did not cancel each other out. Sorry, I murmured. Two eyes, uncertain. Two eyes, startled: okay. 

 

The tangerine peels in the fridge. Warm from her hands ‒ cool on the table ‒ cold, freezing, under miniature white fluorescents. Soft, protecting sweet-sour flesh; soft, giving out to sharp-blunt nails, knives, fingers. Torn away from flesh: hard. It dies a slow death. What is a mother without child? A shield without the shielded? Mom put it in the fridge, after leaving it out for days. She once used it in a soup. It softened, then.

 

I wrote it to say sorry. Two eyes, uncertain, behind closed eyelids. Sanrio pink stationary. smudged navy ink. unsure letters. I’m sorry and I understand, I wrote. I signed my name with a trailing heart ‒ I was learning cursive at school. Felt special when Ms. Lew praised only my letters: close, small, certain. Rubbed the callus on my right middle figure for good luck. Folded an airplane: Sanrio pink, blue ink, blue pink pink blue. Blue in the sky, too. Only nine. I lugged a stool over browned tile. Cut a hole in bathroom window screen. I inhaled: time for take off. If it was meant to be, it would reach him. 

 

Love conquers all. Hardened peel, tangerine. It is both a color and a fruit, description and thing, feeling and thing. Did it give its life to save its flesh? It died, anyway, in Mom’s mouth. In mine. Sour-sweet, white veins tangled on the kitchen table. Inescapable: white stringy flesh in our throats.

 

Hardened peel, tangerine clementine grapefruit pomelo orange. I found the airplane outside my window, soaked in rain. A flight of two seconds. Passengers never boarded. Mom opened the door: I was searching. Door shut; she went inside. Hardened peel, hardened woman, hardened girl.