Orange Peel Season

The third week of sophomore year, Maya stopped being my friend. Not dramatically—no cafeteria confrontation, no stolen diary, no spilled secrets. Just a quiet, toxic drift. She started sitting with the volleyball girls at lunch. Started walking the long way to history to avoid my locker. Started acting like I was that weird kid who smelled like library books, not her person since kindergarten.

So when Mrs. Henderson next door asked if I could watch her dog, Buster, while she recovered from hip surgery, I said yes. I needed something. Anything.

Buster was a catastrophe of golden fur and unconditional love. He greeted me like I'd been away at war instead of at school having an existential crisis. He followed me room to room, his toenails clicking against the hardwood like tiny metronomes counting down my loneliness.

The first night, I sat on Mrs. Henderson's back porch with an orange I'd stolen from the cafeteria fruit bowl. I peeled it methodically, letting the spray of citrus hit my nose, watching the sun sink behind the fence line. Buster rested his chin on my knee, those soulful brown eyes judging my technique.

"You're better than people," I told him, feeding him a segment. He ate it, peel and all. "That's gonna cost you later, buddy."

He threw up orange foam at 2 AM. I cleaned it up without complaining.

The weird thing was, people started noticing me. Walking Buster through the neighborhood, neighbors actually waved. The cute barista at the coffee stand gave me her number. Even Maya watched us from across the street one afternoon, something unreadable on her face, before turning away too quickly.

Maybe it was the dog. Maybe it was the orange hair I'd dyed on impulse last weekend—Maya had said it made me look like a traffic cone, which had been the point. Maybe it was finally walking through the world like I belonged here, not in her shadow.

Two weeks in, I texted Maya: Want to come meet Buster? He's kind of a disaster but I think you'd love him.

She showed up ten minutes later. We sat on the back porch sharing an orange, Buster snoring between us, and for the first time since August, something felt okay.

"Your hair," she said, not unkindly. "It's actually kind of fire."

I smiled, feeding Buster another segment. He really never learned.