Share A Orange Share A Memory

The rays of the sun filtered through the trees, creating stripes on the concrete. My friend and I sat, laughing together. Our smiles competed with the sun, our faces aching as a reminder of our joy. The crow’s feet around our eyes grew more prominent as we spoke.

We hadn’t seen each other in a while; her hair was cut shorter now. She laughed the same way she did as a child—a sound that reminded me of yellow waves of light. The shade around her felt almost blinding, swimming through the crowds like sunlight in motion. The glass was always half full when she was around.

We began to share an orange, a fruit we both loved. She loved the taste. I loved the meaning behind it.

I’d always struggled with peeling oranges. I successfully peeled one when I was ten. My fingers had always been too eager, clawing at the peel with a greedy impatience. I would skip over to my mom and ask if she could do it for me. Her deft fingers peeled it gracefully. She made it look like an art form, passing the fruit back to me with slices grinning up like a smile I could never quite replicate.

To me, oranges were the fruit of sharing—a way to bond over one simple thing.

As my friend went on about her most recent essay, I began peeling the orange. I split it in half and handed her one side. Memories surged back: moments of sharing oranges with different people. Some made me smile—conversations full of joy. Others made me grimace, wishing I’d saved my orange for someone else.

Each slice felt like a time capsule, a pod holding the biggest secrets safe.

Soon, our voices were drowned out by the rain pouring from the sky. My friend groaned loudly, grumbling about how the rain had to come down at such a perfect moment. She stood quickly from the concrete steps, grabbing her bag and holding it over her head as she jogged back toward the house.

But as the first drop hit the ground, it was as if a seed had just sprouted in my mind. A vivid memory rushed forward and filled my senses completely. It explained my long-standing fascination with summer rain.

I pleaded with her to sit back down so I could tell her the story. Her confusion and reluctance seeped from her like water through sidewalk cracks. Still, she sat, and I began to tell her about my love for summer rain.

I started the tradition of watching it when I was seven. Back then, the idea felt just as essential as brushing my teeth or washing the dishes. I hadn’t experienced the taste of loss yet. My senses were filled only with the texture of prickly grass under my bare feet, the scent of fresh soil being potted. Magnets on the fridge held up family photos, report cards, and scribbled drawings of stick figures.

I spent hours outside, running with the nymphs and listening to dragons tell their tales. The leaves seemed to whisper to me, sharing their fear of autumn. It was me and my parents against the world.

I couldn’t help but smile at the bittersweet memory. It sat beneath a hazy filter in my mind, distorting some shapes. Some faces had blurred. Others remained crystal clear.

That house is gone now. Flames consumed the walls I once called home. The memories burned away—reduced to nothing but ashes.

We moved to a new house when I was nine. I’m fifteen now. Summers are filled with college tours and trying to figure out my future career. I have new friends. The dragons and fairies have moved on to sit beside other children.

As I retold my story, the rain poured harder. My friend leaned closer to hear it. I transported myself—and her—back to that one beautiful day. I had just come home from the pool, laughing and playing mermaids with my friends. A cyan towel wrapped around me, its frayed edges tickling my shoulders.

The rain sounded uneven—no longer the constant pattern I was used to. And I couldn’t believe my eyes.

The rain had split.

A perfect divide between the front and back yards.

I dashed inside, forgetting the towel completely, shouting that the rain had split. I ran to the living room, proclaiming what I saw.

My friend gasped, snapping me out of my memory. Her face mirrored mine from all those years ago. At first, she claimed my memory must have failed. I shook my head insistently, repeating, “It’s true.”

She smiled and beckoned me to continue.

I remembered gaping at the scene, pointing, trying to form words. My mother laughed and told me to close my mouth before I swallowed a bug. After a long moment of staring and babbling about how insane it was, we went inside.

My father went straight to the kitchen. Once a week, we had pancakes for dinner. The soft sizzle of batter hitting the pan was in rhythm with the rain pattering outside.

The nostalgia that hit me was unapologetic.

It had the duality of the ocean.

Sometimes the ocean moves in soft waves, humming a croon that soothes even the most jagged souls. But other times, it’s a vicious slam—unforgiving and ready to consume.

I’ll always look back and smile softly when those waves of memory crash into me.

By the time I finished reminiscing, the rain had stopped. Droplets still rolled down the gutters, their pitter-patter matching our footsteps as we walked back to the house. My friend made quiet remarks, still unsure whether she believed my story. She claimed there was no way rain could split like that.

But I knew what I saw.

The rain had both divided and united the yard.

A crude echo of how memories and nostalgia function. Calm waves of memory come to us constantly. But the tsunami of nostalgia can take anyone down.

You can have all the memories in the world.

But nostalgia is what makes them unforgettable.