Apple Hunting
an excerpt

Lara was the friend in high school that I was afraid to bring home to my parents. We first met in eighth grade when she conned me into switching places with her in the sports line so she didn't have to do the high ropes course, where I spent several terrified afternoons clinging to a little wooden platform thirty feet up a tree, while some upperclassmen coaxed me to grab onto a zip line handle with my scrawny, weak arms, and all but freefall to the ground, or walk out on a tightrope with nothing to hold on to except another wobbly rope. I don't remember how I got to be Lara's Spanish study partner, but I suspect it wasn't much of a choice by me. In high school you often don't get to pick your friends, and neither of us had many to choose from - Lara was tougher than most kids in school and had a hard time fitting in. I don't know what my excuse was. I was just shy.