"Well? What do you think?" Apple nudged again, her voice a cheeky whisper that probably carried to the next postal code. Her enthusiasm was a force of nature—bright, relentless, and utterly exhausting to anyone who preferred to observe the world rather than accost it.
I glanced at her, taking her in the way I always did when she wasn't looking. Apple was... a lot. In the best possible way. She had this wild mane of blonde hair that she dyed with pink streaks every few months, claiming it kept life "from getting boring." Today it was pulled into a high ponytail that swung with every animated gesture. Her eyes were sharp, intelligent, missing nothing despite the chaos she projected—a survivor's instinct wrapped in neon packaging. She dressed like a walking explosion of colour, today in a bubble gum pink cardigan over a dress covered in tiny sunflowers, accessorized with at least four bracelets that clinked every time she moved.
She reminded me, sometimes, of that girl from the Addams Family show—Enid, the werewolf girl with the colourful sweaters and the relentless optimism. But Apple had more polish. Literally. Her grandmother was Polish, and that counted for everything. Her Polish grandmother, to be exact, the one she talked about constantly, the one who taught her to cook pierogi and curse like a sailor and wear bright colours because "life is too short to be boring, kochanie." Apple had inherited her grandmother's flamboyance, her dramatic gestures, her habit of telling stories that grew more elaborate with each retelling. But most of all, she'd inherited her grandmother's philosophy: humour is armour. You put it on every morning, and you wear it all day, and no matter what life throws at you, you keep laughing.
"You know, staring isn't the same as answering," she said, catching me mid-thought. "I see you, G. Analysing me like I'm one of your dusty old texts."
"I'm not analysing. I'm appreciating."
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"Uh-huh." She rolled her eyes, but I caught the small smile. "Appreciate faster. We've got prime seating and I want to know if any of these specimens are worth my time."
That was another thing about Apple. She used her “humour like armour”, deflecting anything that got too close, too real. She'd told me once, over wine and terrible reality TV, that laughter was her shield. "You can either cry about the world or laugh at it," she'd said, her voice uncharacteristically serious. "I choose laughter. It's more fun and the makeup stays intact." I'd understood then, in a way she couldn't possibly know, why I loved her so fiercely. We both wore armour. Hers was just brighter.
She'd also once told me, after a particularly disastrous date she'd dragged me along for moral support, that we were basically living our own version of that show 2 Broke Girls. "I'm totally Caroline," she'd announced, flipping her pink-streaked hair. "I'm the one with the privileged background who's pretending to be poor while having a safety net the size of Texas. Also, I'm the pretty one."
"You are absolutely insufferable," I'd replied.
"You're Max," she'd continued, ignoring me completely. "All gloomy and cynical and making snappy one-liners that could kill a man. But secretly? Total softie. Would burn the world down for the people you love. Also, you make better cupcakes."
"I don't bake."
"You WOULD. If the plot demanded it. That's the energy."
The comparison wasn't entirely wrong. Apple did have that Caroline quality—the boundless optimism, the relentless cheerfulness, the ability to see the best in every situation even when things went sideways. She'd grown up in Wellesley, Massachusetts, where her father, a stock broker who'd done exceptionally well in real estate, had bought them a beautiful colonial house with a porch swing and a garden. Her mother taught at the Wellesley Middle School—Apple always made sure to mention it was "the public one, not the fancy private one, because my parents believe in community"—and had the kind of calm, steady presence that explained where Apple got her core of stability beneath all the chaos.
She was an only child, which maybe explained why she'd latched onto me with such ferocious loyalty. I'd become the sister she never had, and she treated the role with deadly seriousness, even when she was making jokes about anything under the sun.
