Apricots

Apricots. I know how much she loves them. Sweet and round and golden. Dripping, saccharine, down her hands when she tears into the soft flesh. I pick some up on the way home, leave a bag of them in the kitchen where I know she’ll find it and smile at the group of seeds she has gathered on the table.

For all the brightness of her, Darling is not easy to love. She’s a fighter, you see, always has been. Maybe it’s the way she was raised or simply just her nature; even so, Darling is not easy. She loves like it is a battle, with her shoulders squared and her fists raised. Other people struggle to understand it, mine and her relationship, but that’s alright, we don’t need anyone to.

I met her when we were young, hardly out of university and unsure of how to navigate the world, now that we were in it. She said she liked the way I smile, though, even after all these years, I still don’t understand why. My teeth are crooked and oddly shaped; Darling says it is endearing. I don’t know how to believe her. Doubt is entwined into my very soul.

I suppose that’s what makes us work so well, her and I. She is the sun, bright and blazing. I am the moon; without her, I would not shine. Without her, no one would realise I exist at all. She casts warmth into me, pulls all my best parts into the light and makes me seen. I turn toward her for direction, for love, for peace. No one knows me like Darling does. Not even, it would seem, myself.

There is a fierceness in the way she moves, vehement and unabashed. I have always admired that about her; she could commandeer a room with such utter fearlessness. Brash and bold, Darling was forged from the fires of hardship. A phoenix. Violent in her beauty, furious in her passion. It must be difficult to bear such turbulent feeling. So, I let her pour it into me; until she is soothed and I, overflowing. The least I can do is sit quiet and take it, and I do so willingly. Open hands and bent head, I accept her offering. Silent, I shoulder the sheer emotion of my Darling, with nothing but gratitude on my lips.

She is, quite possibly, the most brilliant thing to have happened to me. There are many who would disagree, but I don’t care. My Mother says she is a wrecking ball in the shape of a woman, catastrophic, capable of complete and utter destruction. I say she is creation itself; she can spin sheer wonders into being with just her hands. Darling has such lovely hands. They are small yet strong. Soft on the backs of them and quite calloused underneath. She likes to clench them when she is angry. Tucks her thumb against her palm and screws them into tight fists.

Darling doesn’t mean to get angry; she, like the rest of us, is only human. But sometimes it just comes pouring out of her, like the molten rock that once spilled from the mouth of Vesuvius. What, then, does that make me? Pompeii, maybe? Shrouded in ash? No, Darling would never hurt me. She loves me so strongly, so surely and with such little inhibition. She would cut down entire armies, for me. I know because she says this often.

That is why I don’t do anything, when she unleashes that anger upon me. I know she doesn’t mean it. Darling, she… loves me. She does, she really does. So, I buy her Apricots. And I stay quiet.