To you, the perpetrator of my misfortune:

Peel me now—go ahead and strip me of my pride. But before you squeeze me for my sweet surprise, beware of my newfound bitter bite. No, because of you, I do not excite the tongue. I am only a repellant. Drink me first; you’ll spit me out, throw me away. You will deem me an unlucky pick. As you break me apart, know that my heart was not meant to be shared: you broke me before when you stole her with your ungrateful heart. I saw your expression when you looked at her—you rolled your eyes, even looked elsewhere. I heard what you said. $1.25? A cookie’s almost a buck less! You could not have appreciated her as I did.

Lady Pink: she was ideal with an unblemished, flawless complexion.

Smooth and delicate—even angelic. But do not be quick to judge. She was crisp. Cool. And I know beneath that skin was some crunch. Her scent was captivating: sweet and flowery. Did you know that before you snatched her away? To think that you had the audacity to compare her to a man-made, red #1, preservative-filled dessert. Lady Pink was pure.

She stood out among her kind. The Fuji twins always bickered over who would be picked first: the brighter sister bragged about her glowing skin, but after a few days, tiny brown spots spotted her skin. And the stars of Lady’s basket were always the Honeys—Little Miss Populars.

And each day, I watched Lady from across the lunchroom, dreaming about our companionship. But then one morning, I awoke to complete chaos. Overnight, we had moved from the basket labeled “ORANGES” to a more suitable, general bunch: “FRESH FRUIT.” And then two of my own kind broke out in frenzy. The malevolent Bloods, whom I often avoided, believed our kinds had to stay separate because intermingling affected the bloodlines. And the Valencias, shipped directly from the third largest city of Spain, thought the more variety, the better (at least that is what I think… my Spanish is a little broken)! Granny Smith, unmistakable for her soft skin with ugly brown spots, was included in this bunch until she exploded in a fit of paranoia, escaped the straw basket in search of her beloved but long-dead Mr. Golden, and rolled to her death on the cafeteria floor.

But then she appeared! A few inches away! My Lady. So dainty and graceful when she rolled. Even for a second, the Bloods stopped quarrelling and gazed at her. Believe me, even Sir McIntosh broke away from the Honeys who suffocated him—although he enjoyed the attention—to often badger her. Often it was, “Hey Pink, whad’ya say we sneak out of this basket tonight to take a roll around the lunch room?” or “Pink, how about going to Delicious’s DJ party by the vending machine?”

But Pink kept her dignity, even as he tried to impress her with his core. What did that matter if no person valued it anyway? And then I found a connection between our two kinds. When my kind is picked, we are peeled. We are shed of our outermost layer that protects us, that keeps us secure. And sure, Lady and her friends might keep their outer skin, but their most central feature is pitched and believed to be of no value. But these two features together—our outer- and inner-most parts—are most important in combination. They keep us secure: without them, we remain unbound.

And one day she spoke to me.

“Clement.”

She moved to meet my gaze.

“Clement, I have never seen an orange like you.”

“I am small.”

“Why do you mention your size? It reveals nothing.”

“I am inferior.”

“To whom? The oranges who feud over mixing our kinds? Your Bloods spend time wanting to preserve who they are, but what does that mean? And the Valencias are welcoming in words yet shunning in action. For all I see, the Bloods do not know that they work to preserve you and me who come from a branch that stems from the tree planted in the same ground. We both come from a seed—different seeds, but a seed nonetheless—and we are more alike than any argument against our mingling.”

When she stopped, her pink cheeks blushed pinker. When you took her, she did not fight. And now her words echo only in my ears. Together, we could have united: two fruits whose wholeness is appreciated only if the two are combined.

Your no-longer inferior,

Clement