By the Orange Tree

People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget.
- James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

___

The memories of that summer are kind. Memories of my worn sneakers trampling the sun beaten asphalt, memories of the orange tree hanging over the sidewalk and scratching my cheek, memories of the street lamps buzzing alongside the cicadas, flickering incessantly as if drained by the heat. But no matter how hard I try to preserve the kindness of that summer, the mercy of August is constantly overwritten by the sharp screech of rubber tires, and you, who smelt like cherry blossoms.

___

Halle finds it a little silly, that he still gets anxious stepping onto the diving board. The water spans like concrete below him, hard and still as he hangs, 15m in the air, toes pushing the edge, teasing the idea of falling off. His body is a ruled line, hands rigid at his sides, long legs glued together. He can see Sol and Niyo's hazy forms sitting poolside, can feel their light gazes trained on him. His next inhale comes shakily.

He still has to remind himself, even at 19 with 11 years of experience backing him up, that the water will break when he hits it. That it'll forgive him, will swallow him up and spit him back up onto the surface. The latex of his swim cap crushes his ears against his skull, his heartbeat pounds within him, around him. 3 steps back mark the jump, and then he's skipping forward again, reaching up into the criss-crossing beams of the ceiling, before finally folding forward and letting gravity bring him down into the pool.

When he surfaces with a gasp the first thing he hears is Niyo's clapping, loud and inconsistent. Sol whistles coyly as he swims towards them, and Halle's already rolling his eyes when Sol breaks into a smile.

"Your ass looks great in that speedo," he sighs. Beside him, Niyo unsuccessfully stifles his laugh with a cough.

Halle shakes his head, freeing his hair from the cap before splashing as much water as he can up towards Sol. The idiot had worn socks on deck, and he shrieks indignantly as the fabric dampens.

"Prickly," he shoots at Halle, frowning at his wet feet.

"All you," he replies, ruffling his hair with a smirk. Sol had bleached his buzz cut 2 months ago at the start of summer, and his black roots have begun growing in lazily, making him look porcupine-ish.

"Nice dive," Niyo interjects before their banter can run on. On a normal day he and Halle would be taking turns, but he's been nursing a concussion for two weeks after hitting the water with his head.

"Thank you for knowing how to compliment people," he answers, sending a pointed look towards Sol who only laughs in return.

He's content, beneath the exaggerated frown he sends Sol. It's his last dive of the day, but their bickering will last well into the night - likely over dinner - as Niyo backs him up with reverence, and he and Sol fight over the last fry in the basket. Before that though, he'll change, and they'll meet up with Money - who'd been named with his parents limited English but big aspirations - who'll sit quietly and document the moments on the camera hanging perpetually around his neck.

He lifts himself out of the water, secretly relieved to be done. Niyo looks more upset than he does, appearing even stranger with the disappointment written in his mouth. Niyo's all incomprehensible androgynous beauty - long hair and crescent eyes, the left of which is underlined by 3 beauty marks in concession, a parade of sorts. His shoulders are broad and his nose is strong, his lips soft and red, he's a complete outcast from the binary Halle knows.

"I need this stupid concussion to go away," he grumbles, and Halle smiles. It's been 6 years and he still catches himself lingering on Niyo, smothered by a feeling he's boiled down to confusion.

He changes and meets Sol and Niyo outside, the former greeting him by chucking a pair of wet socks at his face. They wait outside the rec centre for Money to show up. His shift at the McDonalds down the street ends at 5, and the watch on Niyo's wrist reads 4:53. At 5:07 Niyo leaves to get some rest, and Money shows up not long after, shoving his messy curls out of his face and smiling softly at him and Sol.

Then he opens his mouth, and the words fall out quick and tensely: "Someone get me a fucking coffee."

___

At 5:45 the three of them sit on the sidewalk outside a Starbucks, nursing 2 empty coffee cups, Halle's hands cool against an iced tea. The sun sets lethargically these days, allowing Halle extra hours of blue skies and light.

August sprawls out before him, generously lounging before school starts and his stomach inevitably shrinks further into himself, and the bags beneath his eyes are pulled lower and heavier with every passing week. In August, Halle finds refuge. Just him, the pool, and his friends, crowded around beneath him ready to watch him fall.

"Wanna race?" Sol asks from his right. He bumps his arm against Halle's side, the dark skin misted with sweat from the heat. Halle's own face is red from it.

They haven't done this since high school, sitting curbside and watching the drifting clouds, getting restless and chasing each other down the street, bodies jostling against the swollen heat lodged between them.

Halle obliges easily. He takes off, laughing as Sol swears and jumps up after him.

"A headstart's cheating asshole!" Sol calls, smiling as he catches up easily, ever the trackstar.

Money stays sitting on the edge of the road, enveloped in the black sweater Halle finds offensively suffocating. Nonetheless he's content, watching as the two of them shove each other back and forth all the way to the end of the street where a streetlamp marks their pseudo-finish line.

Sol predictably wins, hooting as he watches Halle trudge up behind him. His muscles ache from the day, legs jelly from the overuse, but it feels good to hear Sol's hollering. Strangely he misses it already, even though summer's far from over and Sol's not going to quiet down anytime soon.

The sun finally sets at 9 and the weather becomes more forgiving, so Halle doesn't mind as Sol drapes his arms around him and Money, propelling them forward.

"Where to next?" he asks, looking from Money to Halle back to Money for answers.

Halle shakes his head fondly. Money looks in dire need for a real drink and Sol, despite his sobriety, is always the last to decline a night out. It's easy to predict where the three of them will end up. But with every step exhaustion creeps from the dredges of Halle's mind to the forefront, and he finds himself falling out from under Sol's grip.

"I'm done for today," he says lightly, and even though Sol looks crestfallen he bounces back quickly, grabbing fully onto Money and practically dragging him away to the nearest club.

(Halle would wonder later, if tagging along that night would've changed anything. Maybe it wouldn't have, maybe the meeting was destiny or fate or something along those cruel lines. In the end maybe it didn't matter, they'd said their goodbyes, and Halle had wandered home by himself.)

His apartment's in a residential area but the night's still loud, buzzing with insects and toads and the odd car shooting past. Halle walks slowly, as if without purpose, dallying with extra care. He reaches the orange tree across the street from his place, the smell of citrus snaps him awake a little.

There's no crosswalk connecting the sidewalk he stands on to the one he needs to go to. Just a strip of road and his own caution, but he's always been a little careless - especially so tonight.

He steps onto the road with confidence, the kind of confidence you get from youth, from a life that hasn't touched you yet. He's halfway across when he sees the the lights flashing towards him, approaching angrily and without notice of Halle, stuck halfway between one side and another.

The asphalt meets his body as he falls backwards, elbows digging sharply against the ground, hands shielding his face as if it'll stop the car. Halle waits, expecting the sharpness of the impact, the hollowness of his body afterwards, but when he opens his eyes at last he sees the headlights stopped inches in front of him.

The car door opens with urgency, and Halle can barely see who walks out over the brightness obscuring his eyes. A hand reaches out for him, the skin caught somewhere between young and aged, but the feel of it is delicate. He's pulled to his feet, and when his eyes focus he finds himself looking at a man. His eyes are the same green as Niyo's but they're thinner, flatter, and glossed over with worry. He smells the way his hand in Halle's palm feels, delicate, soft, like flowers.

"Are you alright?" he asks, brows knitted in concern.

Cherry blossoms. Halle thinks at last. He smells like cherry blossoms.