I generally don’t like to eat things that have dark spots on them that shouldn’t be there. The persimmons are bruised beyond repair: like someone had gone over the glossy yellow-orange with black and green sharpie markers and smeared the ink before it dried. It’s probably mold but I don’t bother to sniff it out. That’s what I get for wanting to try new things—fruit ripening backlash and regret rearing its ugly head. I bought a bag of Cosmic Crisp apples too, a new breed of apple I spotted at the farmer’s market. They felt firm to touch when I picked them out, and apples aren’t difficult. If they look decent on the outside, they should be fine on the inside, so I hoped. Ed thinks it’s weird that I derive so much joy from discovering new, cheap apples.

I guess I can’t fault the persimmons. I bruise easily too. Like a peach, Ed says when he grabs my arm as I open the door, my forearm blushing red under his fingers. Just getting groceries, I tell him, and he lets go. There isn’t enough fruit now that I’ve tossed out the persimmons. Ed says I get cranky without enough sugar, although I don’t think I feel any different, I just like the juiciness. Bring your pepper spray, he replies because he’s paranoid.

There’s not much of a science behind choosing fruit. Sometimes I’ll get the more bruised pieces if they’re cheaper, and then I’ll freeze them when I’m back. Once they’ve turned solid, crystallized to rock, the mushy spots are only discernible by color. Goes down the digestive system all the same. When I feel picky, I’ll spend minutes staring at a box of Korean pears, weighing each one in my hand, pressing them for firmness, imagining I’m cupping a newborn’s head with a skull still soft and malleable. If the flesh gives a tiny bit, I know it’s a little sweeter than desired but still workable, if only these pears were a bit cheaper. Just buy them, Ed would say. He has no interior price barometer, thinks Korean pears cost the same as Bartlett pears cost the same as bananas cost the same as Russet potatoes. It makes a difference, I tell him. It adds up.

My hair is twisted up in a bun—it feels cleaner, like I can optimize my grocery trip without fanfare, pick out the unblemished produce on my first try, pinpoint real-time mistakes as the cashier enters prices (because they once charged me for organic apples rather than conventional and I had to drive back to the store, receipt in hand). I only wear my hair like this when I shop alone because Ed says I look too much like a professional woman, too intimidating and cold, too mature—which means I look older than a high school student. And I get it, I like smooth, unwrinkled, baby-like skin too, except at the rate hot oil flicks from the ceramic pan and I touch metal handles forgetting the Bakelite coating doesn’t run their entire length and the knife blade skims my fingers when I’m chopping, I don’t imagine my skin staying like this for much longer. I’m sure Ed would prefer dinner over the schoolgirl look, anyway.

I wonder if I should gamble on the pomelo. They’re fifty cents each, but each one feels a little hollow, the peel deflated on some sides and bulging on others. I pick three, hoping there’s more flesh than pulp. As I check out, I nearly pull out the joint credit card. The cards are all tightly wedged in the rubber pocket super-glued to the back of my phone case. I prefer to use mine because I pay off the bill as soon as the transaction goes through; Ed waits until the end of the month once he has enough paycheck cash to pay it all off. I tell him that it hurts his credit score, but he says it’s fine. I can take care of everything you need, don’t worry, he’ll tell me. I never worry. I swipe my card through the reader, pocket the receipt, and dismiss the transaction push notification from my phone. 

I undo my bun before I return. My hair falls behind my back like a sack of sand. Inside, I pull off my coat and change into my oversized wool sweater. Ed stares at my arm. Where did those bruises come from? he asks. I’m not sure what I find funny, but I smile, don’t you remember? He pauses, silent while thinking. Then he laughs. Right, wow, you really are so delicate!

I rummage through the fridge for an apple, a dark-skinned Cosmic Crisp that I scrub under the faucet with the hard side of a sponge, trying to get rid of the waxy coating. I take a bite. True to its name, it is cosmically galactically astronomically crisp, and my jaw sinking into the fruit yields a crunch that could put cartoon dub sound recordings to shame. The subsequent bites taste more saccharine than pleasant. Want it? I ask Ed. He takes the apple from me and I watch him chomp down like a nutcracker, juice spraying my face, not much different from a typical blow job with him gripping my scalp, squeezing my head between his legs. I like this, he says. Perfect for a sweet tooth. 

Lucy Zhang writes, codes and watches anime. Her work has appeared in The Portland Review, The Suburban Review, Orca, Milk Candy Review, and elsewhere, and is anthologized in Best Microfiction 2021 and Best Small Fictions 2021. She edits for Barren Magazine, Heavy Feather Review and Pithead Chapel. Find her at https://kowaretasekai.wordpress.com/ or on Twitter @Dango_Ramen.

Image by Didssph @didsss