I can always tell when someone has been in contact with an orange. The thick, rough skin leaves a certain texture on you: oily and fruity. I can smell the citrus on your skin, on your breath, through the brown paper bag hiding your lunch, and with it your big, juicy orange. I know exactly where it is, nestled between the peanut butter and jelly sandwich and Ozarka water bottle. And there it will stay until the final fourth period bell rings, releasing you and your band of orange eaters that blend in with the other normal students into the wilds of a high school lunch.

I slid into the empty seat across from you just as you extracted the fruit from your lunch. I watched as you dug your painted green fingernails into the thick skin. Immediately, the sharp odor invaded my nostrils, wrapping itself up in my nose and wiggling its way into my brain, numbing it. The skin fell from your fingers onto the innocent brown table, contaminating it with that awful stench. You spoke to others around us, oblivious of my glaring at the demon in your hands. You slowly pulled a portion of the orange from the rest, moving it towards your mouth. Your lips closed around it, chewing slowly, carelessly.

“Ooh,” you said, “It’s sour.”

Your face got screwed up in an almost pained expression, as if the evil fruit had come to life and began to stab your tongue with tiny, evil spikes shooting out of the pale skin as soon as it disappeared into your mouth. You put the rest of the orange down, and for the moment it was hidden behind your brown paper bag. You continued to eat your lunch, seemingly unaware of the omen only a few inches away from you. But I knew it was there, how could I forget? I stared at the bag, willing myself to see through it, so I could keep my eye on the brutish food.

You finished eating, slipping the last of your sticky sandwich into your mouth. You stood up in all your grace and gaited off towards the trashcan, all the trash from your meal in hand with the exception of one thing. Across from me sat the unfinished orange, my adversary and I alone at last.

As I gazed at this tiny offender, my mind wandered back to a time when my hair was white blonde, long, and always in braids. It was a time of ease, of relaxation, of kindergarten. Every day in this blissful past life, I had peanut butter crackers with a Capri Sun, a Little Debbie Brownie, and a big, juicy orange. A particular day crossed my mind. I peeled the orange like you, dropping the skin from my tiny fingers to the table. I broke the orange into halves and those halves down into eighths, revealing the juicy guts of the fruit to the whole world. I lifted one half to my open mouth, putting a little too much pressure on the fractioned fruit.

Before I could react, my favorite fruit betrayed me and sprayed its citrus juice directly into my bright blue eye. It burned like nothing had every burned before, setting off the waterworks paired with anguished howls of pain from my mouth. I threw the orange away from me in disgust just as my teacher arrived to escort me to the girls’ restroom where she flushed out my eye with cool, clear water. As I looked at my red eyes in the mirror, I vowed to never eat an orange again. The recollection of this memory infuriated me, locking my jaw and clenching my hands into tight, angry fists.

I longed to reach across the table and smash this wickedness once and for all. Too soon, though, you returned to the table. Absorbed entirely in the fruit, I failed to notice your arrival.

“Do you want it?” you asked innocently. “It’s too sour for me.”

You held that nasty thing so close to my face I could barely breathe. All I could do to get it away from my face was snatch in from your outstretched hand.

“Thanks,” I choked out.

You sat, watching me expectantly. To eat it. How could I? But how could I not? Your big brown eyes poured into my narrowed blue ones. Slowly, I peeled a section of the orange from the rest. I lifted the fruit to my mouth, willing myself not to gag as the reek of it came closer to my mouth. And then it was in my mouth, chewed up, down my throat.

It was delicious.

How had I been missing out on so much for so long? The sour acidity filled up my mouth and throat and stomach with a taste foreign to me. I continued to put these tart delights into my mouth until every last section of the orange was gone. And though this high school lunch hour lacked the luster to impact the wider world, my personal universe turned upside down as the orange, and success of overcoming a deep set fear, filled me from the bottom up.