Prompt: Candy Apple Red
Red was Diane's favorite color, so when they threw the party, Marty insisted everything be red. Red balloons, red flowers, red decorations, even red icing on the cake.
Red bike, red blood, red cross, red signs in the hospital.
He enlisted the help of all the guys on the football team to turn Diane's backyard into a fall festival in late spring because he knew autumn was her favorite season. Bryan Fitzpatrick--who was a stellar baker--made apple, cherry, and pumpkin pies, and Gallagher Murphy got his rich uncle to fly in all kinds of fall vegetables from somewhere in South America where they were growing fresh.
When it really had been autumn, Diane had been a month into her coma with no sign of coming out of it. She'd missed the whole season.
Marty called it a Welcome Home party. Diane called it a Thank God You're Alive party.
Over a hundred kids from school flooded the backyard on the day they finally released Diane from the hospital, and she cried when she saw them all. They came up to her one by one, hugging her and telling her how much they'd missed her, bringing her food and drinks before she even asked and pushing her around the yard in her new wheelchair so she could see everything Marty and his friends had done.
Later, Diane told Marty that she she was pretty sure at least half those people hadn't even known her name before the accident.
When it was over and everyone was gone, Diane kissed Marty and told him it was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her. She pressed one of the red flowers in a book of poetry that she hardly ever read.
When she found the flower fifteen years later, it was still the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her, and she still cried at the memory.
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