The apples were nearly ripe. Red where the sun had kissed them too hard, green in the hollows of shade. Some were freckled, some split open already, pale flesh browning, bees drunk on the sugar. The smell hung low and thick. 

He didn’t decide to dance. It happened the way shivering happens. One bare foot scraped the ground, testing it. His shoulders rolled, stiff and then looser, like he was shrugging off something heavy. His arms lifted, awkward, elbows bent too sharply, wrists slack. He laughed under his breath at how stupid he must look, alone in a field with no one to see.

That was part of it. The not-being-seen.

But the boy danced naked under the apple tree.