Sunday Morning Oranges by Kel Massey

Rowan wakes to sunlight filtering through thin white curtains, pulled together uselessly 
against the soft rays. They sway in the breeze that comes through windows that Ari had cracked 
open last night, now that the nights were warm. They had wanted to listen to the first crickets of 
the season, and Rowan had fallen asleep with their song in his ears. 
Ari’s hair is in his face, and he brushes away the wild, dark curls to sit up. They are still 
asleep next to him, and his movement hadn’t been enough to wake them. He looks out the 
window. The crickets have been replaced with birds, and a particularly loud one convinces 
Rowan to go downstairs and start the coffee, where all of the windows are closed. 
Ari walks down just as Rowan is pouring the hot water into the french press. 
“Can I do it?” 
Rowan lets them take control. He knows how much they love using the french press on 
the weekends, like how they enjoy pressing the elevator buttons. Their easy hands press the 
coffee grounds steadily downwards. For a moment, all Rowan does is breathe, in and out, and 
watch his partner’s hands. The sunlight has reached the kitchen, and everything from the wood to 
the freckles on Ari’s cheeks seem to be glowing. Rowan breathes, and wraps his arms around 
himself in a hug. 
Ari finishes with the coffee, and looks at Rowan. They smile. 
“Good morning.” They say formally as they lean back against the counter, mouth smiling 
even wider. He smiles at their teasing tone. 
“Good morning,” he replies, and they push off of the counter and close the distance 
between the two of them, wrapping their arms around Rowan’s own. He signs into the embrace, 
and then laughs to himself. 
“What is it?” 
He laughs again. “Nothing, just... breakfast burrito.” 
Ari bursts into laughter as well. “That’s so stupid. That’s SO stupid.” 
“No look, I’m wrapped up! Like a breakfast burrito!” 
“Shut up!” They say, and bury their head into his chest, still laughing. Their laughter 
fades into content smiles as the two of them rock back and forth for a few long moments, arms 
encircling arms. ​

The fluorescent light bulb in the bathroom does no favors to Rowan’s headache as he 
looks at his hair in the mirror. He passes a hand through it, blonde strands reaching high above 
his fingers. It’s getting long again. He opens the cabinet door to find the clippers, and is instead 
greeted with anxiety medication. The orange bottle stands out against the white wood of the 
cabinet, and all Rowan can think about is the extra pill currently in the bottle that was supposed 
to be swallowed yesterday. Ari opens the bathroom door just has he closes the cabinet, and they 
say, “You know what we should do tomorrow?” 
“What?” 
“Use that orange juicer your mom gave us.” 
“Yeah?” 
“Yeah, let’s go the store. Oh! Also I have something I wanna get.” 
“Ok.” 
As they walk out of the bathroom, Rowan closes his eyes when he passes the sharp white 
light. Ari is the one to turn it off. ​

The shopping cart’s front left wheel is broken. Rowan doesn’t know why Ari told him to 
grab it on the way in, they were only getting oranges and whatever is is that Ari wanted. But 
now, Rowan is grateful, because the rattling of the wheels is vibrating up through the handle and 
into his hands, grounding him in the moment. The two of them make their way through the aisles 
until they get to the craft section, where Ari hops down off the front of the cart and crouches 
below the fancy ballpoint pens. The cart veers left slightly, and Rowan has to pull it back 
towards his partner. Ari makes a noise of triumph, and they emerge with a plastic container of 
golden glitter, made dull and abrasive by the sharp white lights of the store. 
“I’m gonna put glitter in my hair!” they announce, and place the plastic container on the 
child seat of the cart. Rowan doesn’t respond, opting instead to shift his weight off of his arms, 
off of the cart’s handle. He feels the weight sink back into his feet, and Ari asks, “Is there 
anything you need?” 
“Not really.” 
The two end up wandering through a couple more aisles, with Rowan pushing the cart 
and Ari walking to his right. Before he can ask about going home, he finds himself in the 
kitchenware section. Further down an aisle, a knife reflects clinical white light, dull and abrasive. 
Rowan turns left and walks toward it, leaving Ari behind. It’s a chef’s knife, with a golden blade 
gently curving out of a black handle. Rowan puts it in the cart just as Ari catches up behind him. 
“What’s that?” they ask, giving him a small smile. 
“It’s a... um,” he pauses to read the packaging. “It’s a Chroma Katsumi Chef’s Knife.” 
He knows this isn’t an answer, and he knows that Ari knows this isn’t an answer when they say, 
“Oh, ok. Look, it matches the glitter!” Rowan looks, and it does. Both items gleam in the 
bottom of the cart, but Rowan’s gaze is repeatedly torn from the glitter to stare at the knife. Dull 
and abrasive. 
Rowan’s head feels distant, disconnected as he grabs a red mesh bag of navel oranges. 
There’s too many people at the checkout for him to feel comfortable, and the squeaky broken 
wheel turns left, away from Ari standing on the right, guiding Rowan across the bare laminate 
tiles of the floor and around the bare white industrial shelves and through the lights overhead that 
are too bright and too white and Rowan just wants to go home. ​

The sun dances across the bathroom tiles, but all Rowan feels is the cold hard surface 
under his bare feet. He reaches past ignored anxiety medication to easily find the clippers, and 
it’s the buzzing of Rowan shaving his head that wakes Ari. They pad into the bathroom with 
socked feet, kiss Rowan’s shoulder where hair hasn’t had the chance to fall, and playfully rub the 
area where it has. Rowan’s head hurts and it feels like he’s floating, and he closes the cabinet 
door before his partner can realize that there are far too many pills still in the bottle. 
When Ari finishes shaking the golden glitter into their dark curls, they offer some to 
Rowan, who declines, citing the shortness of his newly-shorn hair, not citing the fact that there is 
a familiar static cloud separating him from the world. His head hurts. 
“It looks better on you, anyway.” He says, and they smile at that. The glitter catches the 
glow of their cheeks and spins light to bounce off of the bathroom tiles, reflecting back to frame 
their face. For a second, Rowan swears they have a halo. ​

Ari opens the windows and a gentle wind moves with the light, shining onto Rowan’s 
back as he methodically cuts oranges in halves, the juicer sitting patiently to the side. Sunlight 
warmly reflects off of the golden knife in his sticky hands. Ari sits on the kitchen counter next to 
him, their fuzzy-socked feet swinging between the sunbeams. It is the kind of mid-morning 
where everything is in comfortable slow-motion, contrasting the pounding of Rowan’s heart. 
He cuts through an orange, the blade making a dull thunk against the wooden cutting 
board. 
“Why did you need that knife?” Ari asks lightly. Their feet swing back and forth, heels 
hitting the cabinets each time. It was a carefully conversational question, but he doesn’t answer. 
The blade slides through another orange. If Rowan is being honest, it isn’t the best knife. 
He had tried sharpening it, but the gold began to flake off so he quickly stopped. He places the 
halves in a bowl and grabs another. 
“I didn’t really. I just liked it.” 
Ari nods, lifting their gaze to look out the window. Instantly Rowan feels cold static 
creep into the empty space their gaze leaves on his form. 
Rowan’s feet are cold, bare on the tiled floor. His socks are just upstairs, but his hands 
are sticky with orange juice, and the knife feels glued to his hand, just as his eyes are glued to the 
knife. It is hot and heavy in his hand, and through the static in his head he slices an orange. 
Ari’s hands wrap around the edge of the counter they’re sitting on, and they lean down to 
be eye level with him. They brush a dark curl out of their face, and Rowan sees the glitter 
transfer to their hands. 
“Hey.” 
“Hi.” 
Rowan only has time to look at them for a second as he responds, before turning back to 
yet another orange, and yet another cut, and yet another layer of clinical static floating him away 
from the atmosphere of the warm golden sunlight hitting the warm golden glitter in Ari’s hair 
and Ari’s eyes and Ari and- 
Ari breathes. 
“Slow down,” they say, and Rowan turns to look at them through the haze of gold and 
orange. His head is floating again, and the only thing tying him to his body is the way they look 
at him. “Your hair can hold the glitter, you know. If you wanted it.” 
He blinks, and stares back at them, brown eyes meeting blue, golden knife resting on top 
of an orange. 
“You don’t have to keep using that knife if it’s not sharp.” A rounded indent appears 
underneath the knife, releasing tiny spurts of scent from the skin of the orange. It doesn’t break. 
The gentle wind has stopped and it’s hot again, so hot, because the windows are open and 
Ari is staring at him and their eyes are brown and their hair has glitter. 
His skin pulls away from the handle of the knife like a bandaid being ripped off after too 
long, and Ari takes his hand. They crinkle their nose at the sticky orange juice on his skin and 
say “Ew,” and smile as they push him towards the sink. 

Kel Massey ​

is a non-binary writer from Baltimore currently working on their bachelor's degree in English. They enjoy strong coffee, big jackets, and crying over actual play podcasts. You can find them @knifeocean on twitter.