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December was the worst month of the year.
Min and Diya hardly saw each other when it mattered. Celebrating different holidays, Diya went to her parents, and Min went to her brother’s place. Diya’s family was never the most accepting bunch, always talking behind her back about her marriage, assuming she couldn’t hear them. She could more often than not. Min loved her brother, but being with him for long stretches of time was tiring.
What they wanted was each other, but they felt obligated to spend their Decembers with their families.
Decembers also always brought up bittersweet memories that manifested in Diya’s dreams. She dreamt in memories, and they tended to cycle through the months previous as they were happening. In December, she dreamt about Noelle.
Noelle was an old friend of Diya’s, perhaps they could’ve been lovers, but the timing was never right. They only were drawn to each other in the cold.
A school trip took them somewhere frigid, and they experienced snow for the first time together. Diya was ecstatic, gawking excitedly out the window, amazed to see something she only had in movies. Noelle was more worried about the temperature.
They had ample time to roam the area, and they were gifted coats by the hosts of the trip when they learned the California natives didn’t own winter gear. They became almost overprepared for the weather. Noelle dressed herself diligently, covering any surface of skin that could crack under the cold sky. Diya was more liberal with her choices, only taking a coat, hat, and gloves.
Noelle was always cold, and Diya understood her caution. Sometimes, when they touched, it felt as though Diya was touching nothing at all. Like Noelle was something both existing and nonexisting. Diya was typically cold herself, but warmed up in certain conditions. Noelle never did. Noelle could never get warm.
Diya urged Noelle outside when the latter didn’t want to go. Noelle was afraid of the cold, and she preferred staying inside the two’s shared room to study and drink the free tea they were provided. Diya begged her to go out with her, stating it would be fun and it was their one chance to experience the snow before they were thrown back into the California sun. Noelle was afraid of the cold, but not when Diya was with her.
The two were bundled up and walked awkwardly around with their extra weight. The snow was lovely, and blinding. It sparkled in the snow, and Diya drank it up with her eyes like she could never get enough of it. Noelle shivered and watched her friend run and laugh.
Diya grabbed her friend’s gloved hands with her own and pulled her along, laughing and smiling at her like it was her life’s purpose. Noelle smiled too, under her scarf. She was cold, but knew Diya could warm her up if she only allowed her to.
It was beautiful, and it was magical, and it was their first kiss. It began to snow, and they were standing away from the eyes of the windowed cabins and under a street light. They were giddy in their happiness, and it felt like the right thing to do. And pressed together, it was if they reached thermal equilibrium. Diya passed her warmth to Noelle, who in turn had let some of the weight of her cold pass into Diya.
It was so long ago. Years before Min came back, and years before Akarsha started hanging around. Together, every winter break, they were drawn together. Two weeks of hiding from windows and kissing like it was a secret. It was only them, and they were happy.
The warmer months pulled them apart. Noelle was forced inside to study, and Diya was always called to some sort of baseball game as a stand in. They seldom saw each other, and regarded each other as separate from their winter personas.
Then Min and Akarsha entered their lives, and they exited each others. It was slow at first, but their new love for the other two separated them completely once high school was over. Year long loves will always last longer than winter loves, and they knew this. They knew it was the right choice, but they both carried their new winters heavily, haunted, almost, by the ghosts of their wintery pasts together.
Adults now, Diya and Noelle haven’t spoken in years. They kept in contact for a while, but Akarsha’s passing turned Noelle into a shell of who she once was, or perhaps a caricature of it. She buried herself in her work, and elected to never speak to anyone again.
Akarsha went up north for college, and found Minnesota was more lonely than she could handle. They found her in her dorm room.
As far as Diya could tell, Akarsha and Noelle were never official. They pined after each other from afar like it was a game. They pushed and pulled and always managed to find their middle ground. Diya and Min had placed bets on when they would actually gain the courage to get together. They never did. Noelle always found herself in people’s lives and minds at the wrong time. She could never have Akarsha, and she could never have Diya, so she decided she couldn’t have anyone ever again. She didn’t go to Akarsha’s funeral.
One time, Diya found herself walking down a busy street at night. It was filled with stores and the smell of cinnamon pooling in and out of buildings. Christmas shoppers, surely. She was never sure, never something she herself was familiar with.
At the end of the street, she saw Noelle standing under a street light. She almost didn’t catch her, people were passing in front of her face, and she could barely make out the silhouette of her old friend. But she would recognize her anywhere, anytime.
She waved to her, but Noelle didn’t wave back. Noelle stared at her with bleary eyes and a sunken in face. Noelle turned away, stumbling through the busy crowd and away from Diya, it looked like she could’ve been crying, but she couldn’t be sure. She was too far to see, and she hadn’t seen her since then.
Diya wakes up now sweating. She’s on the couch, and Min behind her wrapped around her middle. It’s one of the rare December nights they’re able to spend together, and they always choose to be as close as possible.
Min was warm, and Min was kind. She loved Diya, and Diya loved her back for it. Despite this, her brain cursed her with dreams of Noelle every night, and Diya almost kept herself from sleep because of it. But sleep takes everyone eventually.
Her vision is foggy, and the noise of the TV was barely audible over Diya’s poor hearing. Sometime in the night, the channel flipped to a local news station. It spoke of the holiday season, and the weather. The reporters were white, and they smiled and laughed at eachother without earnest.
Suddenly, the news flipped to a new story. One about a death that had occured locally within the past day. They found a woman dead in some sort of motel room. They didn’t know yet if it was murder or suicide, but she was too young and her medical records were too clean for it to be anything health related.
A picture of her when she was living flashed on screen, and it made Diya’s face go numb. It was Noelle.
She wasn’t sure whether to be sad, or neutral. They hadn’t spoken in so long, they once knew most things about the other, but the information slipped through their fingers along with each other.
Diya was laying on the couch, and Noelle was dead. She felt she had lost her other half, but she hadn’t had the half for a long, long time. She was never whole without Noelle, and she never would be again.
But oh well.
It’s just Noelle.