September 28th, 2021

Blood Orange

I like to say that I knew Anne before she was gone. But in reality, we only knew each for seven days every year amidst the blistering heat of August. She always stayed by the dock into late evening, her fishing string attached with a morsel of bread, though she rarely ever had a bite. Sometimes, I would wander out there with a couple of friends, carrying a packet of tissues, ready to pull one out whenever the occasion called for it. My nose used to constantly bleed from the humid weather.

There were no signs when we were seven and nine. Making makeshift fishing poles from tree branches and string and wasting countless afternoon hours away as she put them to use were her pastimes. Even when we were called for dinner, she did not move. As I exited my cabin, I passed by her dock. I don’t know if she ever saw me, but I would pause. I contemplated whether to ask her to walk with me to the cafeteria. But seeing the way her eyes fixed on the water that glimmered underneath the blood orange setting sun, I told myself that she was in her own, serene world. I had no place to bother her. And frankly, I was scared of her.

When we were eight and ten, her sister came rushing up to me. Eyes filled with tears, she pointed a finger at Anne. Her voice cracked when she told me that Anne had caused the faint red mark on her cheek. I put my arm around her shoulder and turned her the other direction. I placed the plastic cup that I had just transformed into a flower into her hand. I told her that I understood.
I can’t say I knew her too well either, but we were the same age. And I had an older brother whom I would get in quarrels with all the time. I envied my friends who had close relationships with their siblings, unable to imagine having a serious conversation with mine that wouldn’t end with him making jokes and me storming away.

Turning my head around, I saw the smirk on Anne’s face. I immediately placed another plastic flower into her sister’s hand.
When we were nine and eleven, I had my worst bloody nose. We were at the tennis courts as per usual for our morning activities. I was running a little late, and upon my arrival, the courts were already blazing, the sun blinding above the tennis balls’ crossfire. I was nine fishing pole lengths in when a blur of lime green met my face. The bright color was soon drowned out by the pool of crimson. I glanced to my side, searching a split second for the racket of the culprit.

The next thing I remember, I was by the water fountain outside the courts. Two cascades danced on top of me, the first one rippling down from my forehead, the second one splashing all over my neck. Immersed in these cold waterfalls, I spent the next five minutes, bent at the waist while watching the water turn tinted scarlet around me.

That evening, I met Anne’s gaze as she entered the cafeteria. She never apologized.

When we were ten and twelve, I stopped going to camp. I never really knew her again.

Looking ahead, when we were fourteen and sixteen, I collected glimpses of who she had become four years later from the hidden messages shared between my parents that seemed to arise out of nowhere in the wake of August. A kind of bitter smog embraced those secrets about her. It was a few days later when I realized that the clues I gathered actually hinted not towards who she was, yet who she was not.

I still do not know what exactly happened, but I have heard rumors that no one talks about what she has accomplished anymore. Her name is a whisper on grimy bathroom walls and tattered yearbook photos. Sometimes, it may be used as a celebration of life, but more often than not, it has become a case study for an uncalled-for gray stone. They have taken her existence as another statistic—one of the 48,000, someone lost again.

I returned to camp that very summer for the first time in those four years. With the same friends from before, I crossed the tennis courts and passed by her dock. But I did not get bloody noses anymore, and I did not make any flowers out of plastic cups. Her name never came up in our conversations. Clouds burdened the ash sky every day of that week; the sunset did not appear quite the same, either.

We say that seven and nine and even nine and eleven must have been too young to understand, but maybe there were signs after all. I comforted her sister, yet if I had spent a second longer to look past the smirk spreading across Anne’s face, maybe I would have seen the fresh scratch fading right below her left eye. Those five minutes underneath the water fountain’s cascades left my body cold, except for my cheeks that flamed in anger. However, if I was not so unobservant, if I was able to lend my eyes and ears to those surrounding me, maybe I would have heard the warning before I walked into the target of the lime green blur. When I saw Anne on the dock in her own world, maybe I could have joined her. There was no reason to be afraid. We are all broken humans after all. Under the glow of blood orange, maybe I could have seen the true Anne.

Even for those seven days when I thought I knew her, I never did. And yes, I was too young to understand. But looking back, I wish I did.