Winter 2021 | Occasus | Issue 11.1

Finally Winter

Caroline was going to kiss Elisa. Never mind that it was only their third Maybe Date, never mind that she’d been thinking about kissing Elisa for years now, never mind that if Caroline’s mom decided to stroll down the driveway, she would definitely see them parked on the street - Caroline was going to kiss Elisa and suffer the consequences.

The late fall fog had thickened to a thunderstorm that slammed rain into the roof of Elisa’s car. Fat droplets were melting against the windshield, and the road was soaked, making the reflection of Caroline’s neighbourhood wobble on the asphalt like it was submerged in a lake. All the streetlamps were on, and the hazy glow wavered over the water. In other words, perfect kissing conditions.

Perched in the driver’s seat, one knee bent to her chest, Elisa was busy adjusting the fabric of her beanie. “I talked to Matteo about Reading Week, and he said the campsite might be closed, depending if it snows.”

“Shoot,” Caroline bit her thumbnail. “If it’s still open, my mom might actually let me go this year. Do you remember last year when I was helping you guys pack and we-”

“Hit that squirrel with a frisbee?” Elisa finished, “yeah I do.” When she laughed, the dusting of freckles on her nose all scrunched together. Caroline scrubbed her palms against the knees of her jeans. Someone was twirling her intestines like spaghetti.

Of course, it didn’t matter if the campsites were open or not. Just like it didn’t matter that Caroline had known Elisa and Matteo from when they were all too small to ride the rollercoaster at the town fair. Her mom’s answer would almost definitely be a no.

Even that morning, as Caroline had been double knotting her laces, her mom had stepped into her room.

“Be back before dinner,” her mom had said, surveying Caroline’s mass of dirty laundry like it was a pile of caracasses waiting to be skinned. “Don’t forget to turn on your location”

“I won’t,” said Caroline, not bothering to mention that the Ramirez house was only a backyard away from their own. It wasn’t as if her mom didn’t know. She used to spend hours sitting by the window, watching
Caroline play with Elisa and Matteo across their adjoining fence, and knocking loudly against the glass whenever it looked like Caroline was about to attempt something adventurous.

Caroline could be going out with Elisa, whom they had known for years, or Bryce Collins, from her AP calculus class, or even Justin Trudeau, and her mom’s lips would purse into the same grimace every time she left the house.

And yet Caroline wasn’t really sure that she and Elisa were dating dating. At first, it had only seemed like they were hanging out, but with less people around. They had gone to the skatepark, walked laps around the mall, and rolled out a picnic blanket on the college campus to toss a volleyball. But these last three times had been different. They had involved Caroline feeling like she had to put on her nice pair of Vans, and Elisa pulling out her credit card with a generous: “I’ll pay.”

There was no guarantee that Elisa liked her - how could Elisa like her? Sure, she had painted Caroline’s nails for her, and she let Caroline spin tangents about statistics, and she talked about her second-year musical theory courses like Caroline already knew what a “downbeat” was. And sure, there was that one time Caroline had sent her a photo of a complicated graph, and Elisa sent back a melody on her oboe that had been inspired by it- but this was Elisa. Elisa who was Matteo’s sister, and two years older. Elisa who used to date Lila Otoikhene, the captain of the rugby team. Elisa who has once kissed Jenn Halbert at a party, while Caroline sat laughing with Matteo, and wondering why her smile felt so stiff.

Now, Elisa tipped her head back to peer through the sunroof, and Caroline was suddenly distracted by the line of her throat. “It’s never gonna slow down, is it.” She leaned forward and flicked at the radio, filling the air with the soft notes of Al Green. Caroline had lost count of the amount of times she’d been in this car, complaining about school and jockeying with Matteo for shotgun.

Elisa had always been quieter than her brother. Taller, she huddled into her seat, all lanky limbs and sharp angles. Caroline knew that if she wanted, she could loop her fingers all the way around Elisa’s slender wrist. Watching her brush at the volume knob, Caroline’s palms itched with the urge to try. The grey sky was slowly growing darker.

As it was, Caroline was surprised her mom hadn’t already trudged down the road to Elisa’s car, ignoring the rain, to rap against the passenger-side window and point at her watch. Shuffling in her seat, Caroline played absentmindedly with the strap of the backpack by her feet. She tried to angle her knees suggestively towards Elisa.

Her friend turned. This close, her freckles looked like a smattering of cinnamon. Caroline wanted to make them crinkle into a smile. Something lurched inside her chest, like she had caught, one handed, a suddenly toppling vase. “You can stay here longer if you want.”

Caroline laughed, suddenly hollow. “I wish I could stay here all night.”

“Come over.”

“My mom would kill me. Forget Caleb, I would be the worst disappointment my family has ever seen.”

Elisa’s mouth twisted, a half frown, as Caroline crossed her arms. She knew, of course, why Caroline’s mom made her do homework under a timer, called her every three hours to check in, and had grounded her for a month the first time she had left the Ramirez house slightly tipsy. Elisa knew why Caroline had to sneak out if she wanted to go to parties, and why she still didn’t have her driver’s license. Their first Maybe Date, her mom had sat watching them through the front window - hence their new position down the road. Caroline didn’t understand, it wasn’t like she was going to turn into her brother, they weren’t even similar - he had failed grade ten math, he had never even owned a skateboard.

It seemed like the more time Caroline had spent with Elisa, the more the windows of her house began to resemble the wrought iron arches of a birdcage. She wished she could spend every night at the Ramirez house, kicking skateboards around their unfinished basement, or scribbling tattoo ideas in the margins of Matteo’s textbook. The only time she had tried, years ago, her mom had shown up at seven-thirty, and locked a hand around her arm, waving at Elisa’s dad: “I’m sorry Julio, I just think it might be better if Caroline stayed at home tonight.”

Matteo had rolled up her Ninja Turtles sleeping bag without saying a word, and then that morning, like every morning, Caroline woke with the sunrise on her face. She always slept facing the window, her back to the rest of the house. If she stared for long enough, she could omit her walls from her vision, narrowing in on the grainy mesh of her window screen, and the thicket of yellow elms that sat along their fence line.

Her palm tapping against the wheel of the car, like it always did when they were talking about bass notes and harmonies. Elisa turned up the volume of the radio. It was Etta James now, and every word she sang seemed to transform into an earnest: kiss, kiss, kiss.  “Are you cold? You can have my sweater.” It was a warm, dark brown. Caroline had been with her the day she bought it, and even then, had been struck with the desire to run the nail of her smallest finger over the pattern on Elisa’s chest. She pulled it off. “I always forget it’s like this when winter’s coming. When all the leaves fall off the trees it’s so sad.”

Taking the sweater in both hands, Caroline shook her head. “I love winter.” She knew that Elisa was looking at her, but she couldn’t bring herself to explain that, when the elms between their houses had been stripped of their leaves, Caroline was able to see through the window into Elisa’s room: afforded only a glimpse of the corner of her Billie Holiday poster.

A single curl had fallen over Elisa’s forehead. All of a sudden, the thunderstorm seemed louder, the water gathering inside Caroline’s ribcage. Animated by one hundred drops of rain, she reached forward and tucked it behind Elisa’s ear. “Can I-”

They kissed. And then they kissed again. Elisa was a bonfire, a bundle of kindling firewood. Caroline spread her hands against the radiating heat. Only Elisa’s nose, at the very tip, had a touch of cold.

Later, when Caroline stumbled inside, grinning stupidly, and drenched from the soles of her shoes to the hood of Elisa’s sweater, she glanced, out of habit, through the back window to the elm trees beyond. The leaves, usually a shining yellow, were curling to a rich gold, dancing on their way to the ground, like the precursor to snowflakes, as winter finally came.

Asia Porcu is a second year student at Western University in the Honours Specialization in Creative Writing and English Literature and Language with a minor in film. She was a featured student reader at "An Afternoon with Alicia Elliot", and has published a poem in the Arts and Humanities Student Council Publication, Symposium.