Seasons

Summer was golden. That’s how I remember it. Concrete buildings would all wash yellow with the sun’s rays, radiating heat that shimmered in the air. The grass in the fields dried into straw and cracked to pieces in the occasional welcome breeze. Ties were loosened, jerseys and blazers once more put into storage, ushering in the shorts and skirts that we all so adored. Brown hair was bleached blonde at the tips, and pale skin was burned raw then simmered into honey. Those were my summers. 

 

Dawn broke at some ungodly hour, sending light lancing through the window onto my face. I never could sleep after the sun came up. The roosters had just hit their stride, screaming their dominance to the high hills, but otherwise the house was quiet. I opened the screen and stood on the veranda, watching dew sparkle in the paddocks. I made breakfast, had a shower, put on my uniform. Everything done in the same sequence, day after day. Muscle memory, by this point. I could have slept through it all – leaving the house, dodging past kangaroos dawn the long winding driveway, walking past farm after sprawling farm until reaching that old dilapidated bus stop. All of the kids from the area caught the bus here, the last stop for the only bus to go so far out. It had a blue stripe.

 

The bus spat me out at the usual place, the short enclosed boulevard leading to the school gates. Even though it was summer, the air was still cold enough to raise goosebumps on my skin. I trailed my hand along the split log fence. My friend was waiting at the gate for me, as always, and we would sit beneath the tree for the half-hour before the bell rang. All of this was normal, comfortable. Except for her.

 

My friend said that she’d just come from the city, and that she was in the same classes as me. I was to show her around, show her the ropes. I made a stupid joke, and she smiled. She was wearing striped socks and had black hair. She was like nothing I’d ever seen. Her eyes were dark and burning and followed me everywhere, along with her too-red smile. She sat next to me when classes began, her shoulder brushing mine. I thought it was accidental, but only for the first few times.

 

At lunch she sat too close to me, pressing against my side. Her skin was cool but I felt altogether too warm, even in the shade. I could smell her, sweet and spicy at the same time, and it made me dizzy. The bell clattered at us to return to our books, our bodies standing from sheer reflex, but not hers. She pulled me down into the grass and pinned me with her eyes. My friends shot me knowing looks as they walked away, but I didn’t know what they meant. She wove clover through my hair and spoke to me in another language, and I stayed just to hear her voice. She plucked a hair from my head, wrapped it around her little finger. It looked darker against her white skin.

 

We walked along the sheer edge of the grounds, and she marvelled at the greenery.
So beautiful, she said. So full of life. It’s as if they go on and on and on. Like you could walk in and be lost to the world forever.
It’s just trees and grass, nothing special. I mean, just past there it’s an old folks home, and then a highway, then a bed’n’breakfast.  It’s pretty boring.
Boring? All I’ve ever seen is concrete and black tar, concrete and tar wherever you look. Not a breath of life anywhere to be found. Every day you’re surrounded by lushness and life, and you call it boring! I’m sorry, I didn’t know. She walked away, and I felt a hole were she’d been. I was pulled after her, trailing apologetically until I was forgiven.  As the sun burned low in the sky I turned towards the blue-striped bus and home. She walked beside me, silent, a question in her eyes that I couldn’t understand. I only knew that I had to go home. She bit her lip, and I couldn’t breathe. She kissed me in front of the school gates as the bell rang to send us home. I burned for her all night.

 

Summer bled to a pale autumn, and not much changed. Some trees lost their leaves, some their bark, but not many. Mostly just the days got shorter, the nights longer and colder. Her hand was cool in mine as she led me away from the classroom again and again. She would sing to me and draw me pictures, whilst the teachers marked me absent and my homework lay undone. She would brush against me casually, a hand or a hip. Her fingers were long and delicate, and I longed to lace them through mine. Each day as we lay under that tree I would try to kiss her again, but she would slip away with her smile on her lips, eyes invitation and challenge all at once. I chased her, but I was always one step behind.

 

The days were short in winter. I would wake up late to a clamouring household, and skip breakfast to run to the bus. The jackets and jumpers came back out, and I would take an extra in case she forgot hers. She never did. One day, she wasn’t at the gate. I thought she was absent, until I saw her through a classroom window, stained fingers placing a grass crown on another’s head. I tasted jealousy, hot and sour like bile on the tongue. I watched as she straddled him and her hair fanned out into a curtain that hid her from view. This time I understood. The next day she was waiting at the gates. 

 

I found a new routine, that winter. Some weeks I would be her creature. I would chase her, give her gifts, fulfil her every wish and whim, or taste bitter shame at my failings. I revelled in her laughter, and in the heat that fired my blood when she would touch me.  Others, I would fret and fume as her gaze favoured another. I vowed time and time again to make an end of it, to find someone else, to give up on her. I never did, because every morning that she waited at the gate was another chance to be with her, this wild mercurial creature. One night, my friend confessed to sleeping with her. I slapped him on the back, and then punched him in the face. It hurt my hand. He’d never even really talked to her. I slit my wrists that night, making a ladder of red that climbed my arm. I bled for a while, just to try it, then bound them up tight. I wore a jacket for weeks after that, and didn’t tell anyone, but I didn’t expect the scars. 

 

In spring, she was waiting for me at the gates.