Roy

I could actually see my seat, 16C, just past the old man’s long right ear whenever he bobbed to the left. Soon I’d be able to unload the backpack that was currently joining forces with my bra strap to cut a groove into my left shoulder. I’d be able to sit down, put my face in my book, and disappear for a few hours into the kind of silence I can almost never find during the semester. But not yet.

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Picking Apples

It hadn’t been her idea to go apple picking at Hillside Orchard at 4 am. That part of the blame definitely belonged to him. It wasn’t really a crime, he’d said. Apples can’t really belong to anyone, can they? And the time was perfect, he reasoned, since he finished his shift at the Circle K at 3:30. His ease and his confidence – unburdened as he was with any kind of moral compass – gave his ideas an old-timey wholesome brand of wonder that was impossible to resist. Pick apples? Sure. 4 am? It’s just a time. Right?

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