Apple-Scented Wishes

"March used to climb these trees every afternoon at this time of year, grabbing at McIntoshes and Macouns, turning the stem of each apple exactly eight times as she recited the alphabet, the way girls do to learn the identity of their true love, making sure to pull the twig free only after she'd reached the first letter of his name" -Here on Earth, by Alice Hoffman

When little girls are growing up, their days are full of games and their nights are full of dreams. They believe in tooth fairies and Easter bunnies and reindeer and true love.

When little girls get a little older, they go to school and they meet some boys and soon those boys are their best friends and together they spend the best years of their lives fighting the foes of adolescence.

Then the little girl grows up, and she's not so little anymore, but she doesn't realize it until one day at lunch when she gets her daily apple and twists the stem exactly eight times, the way little girls do to learn the identity of their true love, except she never pulls off the stem until she gets to "H." And she puts the stem in her pocket and eats her apple so her wish will come true, and she laughs and smiles and pretends that she hasn't been in love with the bespectacled boy who always sits across from her since third year. And when she gets back to the dorm, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out the stem, and she opens the third drawer from the top, where she keep her photos and her diary and everything else that means anything to her. And she opens the heart shaped box that her grandmother gave her for her sixth birthday, and as she sets the stem on top of four years worth of others just like it, she remembers the peppermint smell of Nana when she whispered, "Remember, this box is for you to keep your heart in." And she knows that apples won't make him love her, but she can't stop the little girl inside from believing they will. And she smiles and shuts the box and closes the drawer and she goes back downstairs because it's time for more classes.

Little girls don't expect to be at weddings getting married to their second choice. Red hair and freckles will love her more than glasses and a scar ever could, but that doesn't matter because she poured her heart into the flower girl's basket last night at the rehearsal, and when she sat and cried for an hour or two or more, no one asked why, because everyone knew.

And when the first baby joins the somewhat happy family, she cried yet again. She cries because her days are no longer filled with games and she hasn't dreamed in years, at least not while asleep. Now her days are full of dreams and wishes and might have beens, and at night she plays games that she's forced to play, or else both of them might break. And when the first letter comes, he doesn't even notice her tears, because he knows that she's not the only one who wishes that train rides never happened.

When he's not around and the children are sleeping, she goes to her bedroom and opens the third drawer from the top, where she still keeps her secrets, only they're not so secret anymore since he has seen them all. And she opens her diary and fresh tears soak the pages, and she looks at the pictures, but half of them are incomplete, because she's torn off the face that haunts her. And she opens a heart shaped box, but the only thing inside is a single silver hair that she has hated since they told her but she can't bring herself to throw it out because it's all she has left since Harry stopped writing back.

Little girls never think that when they're twisting their apple exactly eight times, the boy across the table is only twisting it four.