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The clocks go back, and it’s the same as every year.
Jo sighs. Flicks on the kettle, settles down with a brew, slips Kate’s arm around her shoulder. She huddles in close, begging for warmth. “You cold, love?” Kate murmurs, hint of concern hidden behind a faux smile.
Jo’s not cold. She’s in a jumper, and two pairs of socks, and a blanket, and her fingers are wrapped around a steaming mug of tea. She’s not cold, not really, but there’s something missing. It eats away at her inside, and she feels it worse every day, when the darkness comes two minutes earlier than the one before and Kate slips the curtains closed as soon as they walk in from work and Jo can’t remember the last time she saw sunlight, much less sunlight without the wind biting at her cheeks or frost under her feet.
So Jo shakes her head, and rests in the crook of Kate’s shoulder. Kate nods off to sleep at some point, her arm tucked behind Jo, but Jo doesn’t. Sleep doesn’t come. She lies awake. Focuses on Kate’s watch. It’s one of those fancy ones with the touch screen, and Jo messes about with it for a moment. Apparently Kate has climbed eight flights of stairs today, and Jo certainly hasn’t, but she feels like she has. Her limbs ache from the slightest movement, and the November chill seems to seep into them, frosting them over until they creak and the muscles don’t slide across each other like they should. She considers how five o’clock is actually six o’clock, and how that one simple fact means that she’s like this .
It’s a cruel joke when Kate’s watch ticks all the way to ten, and Jo has to leave Kate on the sofa. She even smiles in her sleep, Jo thinks to herself. Kate is too good, and Kate deserves someone who’ll take her out for walks in the park in matching wellies, crunching through fallen leaves with their fingers intertwined. Someone who’ll buy her a coffee afterwards, and drive her home and heat up soup and dance around the kitchen, or whatever it is that people do in the autumn.
Jo can’t do that.
She can only muster up a small smile at her sleeping girlfriend sprawled out across their sofa, drag herself up the stairs, and let her eyes glaze over. She’s not sure if sleep ever comes, but no tears fall and eventually Kate’s body is tucked in beside her, so Jo considers that one of the good days.
***
Smile , they tell her. It’s Christmas. Look happy.
And Jo does smile. Or at least her mouth does. It’s the mask - it does the smiling for her, pulling at all of the muscles until they’re perfectly taunt, and it does it well. Imperceptibly, even, because that’s what happens when your brain runs like clockwork, and the sound of Mariah Carey blaring through the car radio doesn’t provoke existential dread. But December isn’t the worst of it.
The Christmas lights help, strangely as it sounds. Jo watches from safe inside, next to the radiator, when Kate digs out the strings of coloured balls on a Sunday afternoon and spends hours draping them up over the living room window. She insists they’re for Josh’s sake, but Jo knows, deep down, that Kate knows they help. Kate watches the way Jo’s eyes drift towards them when she’s in the passenger seat on the way home from work - that’s their routine, Jo drives in summer, Kate in winter, because Jo can’t stand driving when she has to rely on flickering street lamps and the too-bright headlights on her car - and she takes it all in.
Kate is too good.
Jo watches, again, when Kate and Josh pull out the knackered Christmas tree and start to swathe it in tinsel and more lights and mismatched decorations. She doesn’t comment on the fact that all of the harsh reds and greens clash with the blue cushions she’d picked out in April, and she even manages a smile when Kate lifts up Josh to stand the peeling star on the top. Kate brings her another cup of tea, and Josh puts on a Christmas film that Jo remembers vaguely from long ago, back when she felt less, smiled more. She watches it, though, even manages to sleep properly for a few hours that night.
The mask is better still, on Christmas day. Kate gets her one of those light boxes, the ones that are supposed to trick your brain into thinking there’s sunlight and produce melatonin and serotonin and all of those other chemicals that Jo’s is missing, but she doesn’t have the heart to tell her she’s tried that before. Still, Jo thanks her, presses a kiss to her lips that makes her heart jump more than some artificial light ever will. Kate cooks, as well, and Jo even manages to stand up and help her chop the carrots with the promise of a glass of wine. It feels good, when Kate appears behind her, wrapped up in the slightly faded apron Jo wears in the spring when she’s feeling well enough to bake cookies and brownies for Josh’s friends at school. Kate smells of gravy, but Jo doesn’t mind when she wraps her arms around her waist and gently prises the kitchen knife from her icy clutches.
“Here,” Kate murmurs, with a kiss behind Jo’s ear. “Let me. You go and sit down next to the window,”
Jo shakes her head.
“I want to help,” she insists.
Kate runs her hands up Jo’s sides, keeping her tiny frame pressed against the kitchen counter.
“OK,” she says. “I’m proud of you,”
Her words are nothing, really, but they still set Jo’s nerves alight until maybe, she’s proud of herself, as well.
December is better than the autumn, but not by much. But better is better, and Jo starts to think that maybe, just maybe, winter isn’t too awful.
***
But then Christmas passes, the lights are taken down, and so does New Year, and that means January. January, with the damp air and perpetual frost that Jo dreads each time. She tries to tell herself that the New Year means it’s Spring soon, but it all feels a bit futile when it’s still dark at four o’clock and the leftover Christmas cheese has long since disappeared from the fridge.
She’s curled up with her head on Kate’s lap one night, half-watching the TV when one of the adverts in between Eastenders catches her attention. The music is too happy, the voice actress is too jovial, but Jo can’t draw her eyes away from the images on the screen. It’s one of those cheesy holiday companies, but the Spanish sun looks so appealing compared to the bleakness outside her window, and the thought of feeling the heat on her cheeks without waiting for June to come by sounds incredible.
“We should go somewhere,” Jo breathes.
“Yeah, OK,” Kate jumps to respond, and the relief in her voice that Jo is finally showing an interest in something is a little too apparent. “Where?”
“Don’t mind,” Jo says. And then, “Somewhere sunny,”
Kate laughs. “Yeah, I thought you’d say that,”
The thought of lying on a beach somewhere, cocktail in hand, Kate beside her, makes Jo feel something in her stomach that might be the closest thing to genuine contentment she’s had in a long time. For a second, she’s back to her usual, sarcastic self.
“Depends on whether the boss will give you the time off, I suppose,” Jo quips, earning an eye roll from Kate.
“I’m sure she can sort something out,” Kate replies. “That is, if she fancies spending a couple of weeks in the sun with her girlfriend,”
“Kiss me,” Jo smirks, “And then we’ll see,”
***
It turns out that Kate’s boss is feeling particularly lenient when she grants the two weeks off, right in the cusp of January and February. “When we get back,” Kate smiles on the way to the airport, “It’ll be nearly March, and then you’ll feel better,”
Jo nods, because Kate is right. March is always better, because the clocks go forwards in March, and that means the end is in sight.
(Until October. And then she’ll do the whole bloody palaver again.)
Anyway.
She feels so much better in Spain, and that confirms it for Jo - it’s the weather, that makes her feel like this. But two weeks of mojitos and nice wine and naps on the beach and Kate in a bikini top is fun while it lasts.
Kate takes her out for dinner one night, tells her to get dressed up all nicely, and Jo shocks herself with how she manages to do it effortlessly. At home, getting up in the morning, pulling on cold clothes which never seem to warm up no matter how long they’re pressed against her skin seems like an impossible task, but with Kate it’s nothing.
“I’m proud of you,” Kate says, and Jo doesn’t understand why. Her eyebrows knit together in confusion, eyes refusing to meet Kate’s, until Kate’s hand is there, right above her own, until Jo can feel the warmth of it on her skin.
“Thanks,” Jo mutters quietly, but her heart isn’t in it.
“Hey,” Kate’s voice is soft, and Jo tries to swallow down the lump in her throat, but it doesn’t go away. “You’re doing so well, Jo. You’ve looked so much happier since we’ve been here,”
“I just,” Jo swallows, “Feel so guilty, sometimes, Kate. You deserve someone who’ll treat you properly, not - not someone who can’t even go out just because it’s a bit cold,”
“We both know that that isn’t what it is,” Kate mutters, and Jo knows she’s right, deep down, but it still doesn’t feel true.
Kate sighs, and for a minute Jo thinks she’s pissed her off, but then, just as the final ray of sun disappears behind the mountain in the distance - “I’d take you on holiday every single month, next winter, if it’s help,”
Jo isn’t used to people being nice to her, people wanting to go out of their way for her, especially when it’s because they want to and not because they want something from Jo. But it feels authentic, feels genuine, when Kate says it with that look in her eyes as the sun sets behind them, as the Spanish lady who called them cariñas smiles as she carries their plates back towards the kitchen.
***
March is actually a lot better, even before the clocks go forwards and Jo feels like she can finally breathe again. She sleeps better, even without Kate behind her, and she even goes back to the gym for the first time in months. It feels awful at first, her muscles still ache from the cold and the fatigue hits her before it usually would, but Kate pulls her in afterwards despite her greasy hair and the glisten of sweat on her forehead.
She kisses her like she always does, whispers that she’s proud even though to Jo it feels like she’s done the bare minimum, and that’s all of the motivation Jo needs to go again three days later, and then again the next week, and even to the pub for Friday night drinks after work for the first time since she reluctantly dragged herself along to the Christmas do.
She finds herself enjoying it again, not just tolerating it, work is something she looks forward to. It feels foreign, feels odd, but Jo likes it.