Seasons

The bus pulls up to the station. Late, as always. I never expect to get home much before five thirty anymore, but I can’t help but hope. Hope is the only thing that sustains me when I’m waiting for a bus; sitting in a dingy, smelly tube of brown plastic whilst one-legged pigeons crawl around you and various idiots shout profanities into their mobile phones is not the most enjoyable of places to be.

My queue stands up and drudges to the bus door. The driver, a fat man with glasses like jam jars, nods apathetically as each ‘regular’ displays their pass and finds a seat. I’m usually slightly disconcerted that the man driving a vehicle as big and potentially hazardous as a bus was seemingly blind, but today I’ve got other things on my mind.

I slip into a seat somewhere near the rear, turned so my back and cheek were resting against the window. The cool glass against my cheek was somehow soothing, a cold flannel against the fever of my thoughts. As the bus inched out of the station, I was struck by the utter bleakness of the day. The sky was covered with bored, light grey clouds that couldn’t muster enough energy to do more than drizzle pitifully, and the sun was turned away in nonchalance. It’s almost May, but dull in the way only a British day could be.

It wasn’t like this last year, I muse. The bus passes by a wide stretch of threadbare grass bordered by council-organised flowers, which droop like pensioners shading from the rain. This time last year that grass had been thick and lush, those flowers had been in a wild and delicious abundance, and everything was coloured as if by a child’s poster paint. I’d spent hours there with my friends; picnicking and watching the boys playing football whilst we discussed the latest films and enjoyed the relief of being away from teacher-enforced exam revision. I’d tossed my hair back playfully and laughed freely at my friends’ jokes, pretending not to notice Simon glancing over at me to check I was watching every time he scored a goal.

Those were the sweetest weeks of last year. Everything around me bursting into life; new flowers, new blossom on the trees, new lambs testing their legs, new relationships finding their way. First kisses, near misses, and this strange new bliss’s power over me. The bus passed a weathered old bench, and I saw Simon and me there the first time we’d kissed; his hand on my hair, a whispered “You’re beautiful”, a lingering taste of cherryade and cigarettes…

I felt myself going red. I’d been red all through that spring, dizzy and flustered with the sheer newness of love. The bus drives past the scenes of my memories, and images keep flashing in front of my eyes; running after each other laughing wildly, giggling uncontrollably at anything and everything, him throwing apple-blossom over me, picking petals out of my hair as he swooped in for another kiss.

An involuntary shudder runs through me. Last spring, everything felt so much more intense than usual. Tastes lingered for hours, colours seemed so much sweeter, the brush of his hand against my arm was enough to make me gasp, and I could acutely feel the sun getting more heated on my skin as the days raced towards summer.

The bus passed a row of houses, and behind them I caught a glimpse of a half-hidden field full of knotted grass. I smiled. Closing my eyes, I could smell the pollen and feel the soft caress of petals on my bare legs. Closing my eyes, I was back there with him again, the August sun toasting my exposed skin to gold as we spent hours lounging in an ocean of dazzling yellow flowers. My head on his lap, him playing with a strand of hair that had fallen over my face. Kisses becoming deeper and touches becoming firmer. Hugs lasting longer. Days seeming shorter, even though night was falling later. We were insatiable creatures, trying to silence an unappeasable hunger.

But giddy passion can never last, and just as the leaves get comfortable and slip from green into gold, we became comfortable and slipped from riot to routine. Gone were the days of laughing just for the sheer joy of laughter and that second my heart would stop when I saw him, but in its place came an idyllic ease.

We no longer needed each other every second of the day, but I felt him with me always. Some say dizzy euphoria and exhilaration are a poor swap for contentment, but to me it was more than fair. I felt warm all the time, warm, and comfortable. The bus nears my house, and passing through a street lined with trees I can see us walking beneath them, me in my red coat and white beret, him in a long dark coat and his hand locked in mine, a snowstorm of golden leaves around us. Not saying anything, because we didn’t need to. Just happy being.

As always with love, I thought it would never end. But then winter came, and the first frost froze his heart. The bus slows and I depart, thanking the bus driver obediently, only to come face to face with a park full of children throwing a ball to each other. In my mind’s eye they are having snowball fights, and Simon has taken me to the top of the climbing frame to tell me what I already knew.

My nose had been pink from the cold, and my movements were hindered by the thick gloves protecting my hands from the biting frost. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t wipe away the tears, even though they stung my cheeks when they slipped from my eyes. Or perhaps I didn’t care. More likely I didn’t even notice; it was like the cold had numbed me.

Half-running back home, whether to safety or away from him I don’t know, I’d felt myself crumbling inside. Winter had come and stripped the trees bare of their leaves, leaving them naked and vulnerable and raw. As I passed a particularly withered one, I thought I knew exactly how it felt.
         
That winter, I felt like I was repaying a debt. For every smile from that last year, I owed a sob. For every laugh, I owed an hour of listlessness. For every happy thought, I owed helplessness and self-hatred.

One can’t help but question when their heart has been broken. Why did it happen? When did he stop loving me? How could I have prevented it? And, of course, most importantly and probably most self-destructively…what is wrong with me?

I sigh. It had taken a long time for me to stop questioning everything, including myself. Stopping myself from feeling numb had been hard, but part of me knew that it was the right thing to do. But I still feel so vulnerable. I still feel like I’m raw, stripped of myself. I’m like the organised-flowers in that first patch of grass I’d passed; my coverings are sparse, nowhere near enough.

Nearing my front door, I wonder what mundane pleasures awaited me that night. A book? Chicken and chips for dinner? A bath? A soft bed? I’m not denying that all these experiences are enjoyable, but they pale in comparison to the giddy pleasures last spring had brought. This spring was so dull, I think to myself, almost like it’s still stuck it winter.

But then, through a blizzard of apple-blossom, I see him sitting on my doorstep.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

It’s not Simon. It’s someone else, so I’m taken by surprise when I feel that little twitch in my belly as he smiles at me. He stands up and walks towards me.

“Waiting for you” he replies.

We meet in the middle, and he leans forward. My eyes flit closed briefly, and when they open he’s holding pink petals from my hair in his hand. I meet his gaze. He smiles at me, a gentle smile that’s so unlike Simon’s I’m surprised at the identical swooping sensation it produces. I don’t say anything.

I don’t need to.

He leans forward again, and this time when my eyes flit closed they stay closed. His lips touch mine, and stay there. I feel my senses flooded by him. That warm, masculine smell; somehow both familiar and strange. The softness of his hands as they slip into mine. The sounds of our sighs mixing together in the air. But most of all, a taste. But not of cigarettes and cherryade. Not this time.

Dark chocolate. Bitter. Seductive. Infinitely less childish. Infinitely more complex.

We break apart, and he rests his forehead on mine. I smile, only opening my eyes when the need to look at him grows too great. It’s then that a flash of colour catches my eye.

The sky had cleared slightly, and the sun was peeping out from behind the clouds. I could feel it cautiously warming my bare hands, sending shivers up my spine. A stray ray of sunlight had fallen on two plant pots outside my house, which had burst into flowers the colours of poster paint.

Spring, again.