Just Like Autumn

Red sidewalk, scratchy graffiti, dying leaves, and fuzzy sweaters. It’s soft, intense, saturated and even pastel. Red was Dee's favourite colour but she could barely stand it now. It surrounded her body and filled her senses, spawning swirls of a girl named Autumn Gray. 

Dee nearly stumbled at the mere reminder. She had buried that girl’s name since she had left their little home behind just last fall. ‘She left in autumn, how ironic,’ Dee internally remarked. 

Thinking about it now, Dee realized her feet were carrying her somewhere without her command. All she’d wanted was to be left alone during a quiet night-walk, but her heart had something else in mind. 

She found herself at the ladder of a small burgundy treehouse built deep in the woods behind her home. She didn’t move. She stared, traced, and watched. Waiting for Autumn’s head to pop out from the small high-up doorway, waiting for Autumn to wave down at her with a candy smile. But she wasn’t there. 

The biting wind roared passed her ears and over her shoulders, arm slipping from her sweater pocket and pressing up against the outside of her right thigh. ‘Grab my hand,’ she almost whispered. Dee swore she could feel the flutter of Autumn’s fingertips brushing her inner palm. 

The wind whisked away the unwanted hopeful thought. 

She shivered again. Arms rubbing at her covered biceps. Autumn’s presence always did that to her, shivers of cold and October-comfort. Dee wasn’t ever able to find it within herself to mind when it happened. 

Even the trees couldn’t protect Dee from a growing cold inside and outside. She couldn’t seem to stop staring… just following the lines and carvings Autumn had made. Dee pressed her fingers to the deeper serrations, finally finding her senses as she placed one foot after the other on the weakening ladder ahead of her. 

She climbed and didn’t look down, didn’t look back, and could barely look forward.

The inside of the treehouse was cold and chilling. Moth-eaten blankets and pillows, crumbling paper and dying leaves. Everything was stuffy, cramped and close. Memories slipped from cages and locked rooms in her head. Dee gripped her hair, feeling words and sounds bite at the flesh of her palms. Her fingers tightened as she forced each memory back into its respective room, locking them in the back of her mind. 

She slipped into her cushioned seat, right across from Autumn’s spot. The walls trapped Autumn's signature golden glow as if it too was holding her memory. There always seemed to be a golden glow around her, but only when she sat in front of Dee. As if the world was gracing Dee with Autumn's raw beauty.

Then she remembered once of the worst and best nights of her life. The last time Dee got to see Autumn and all her raw beauty.

That night, the last night they stayed together in the small treehouse. They’d met plenty of times before in this very same spot, even slept there once before. But something felt off that night. If only she had known why. but that night was one of the best nights of Dee’s life. 

It was a treasured memory, filled with trust, laughs, and hidden feelings.

She fell for her eyes first. When Dee first caught her eyes, saw them under the glow of a peeking sunrise, Dee fell, but only a little. Then it was her hands. Her soft, dainty hands that could brush the fallen leaves with such delicacy as if each dying plant could feel its own pain. And when they touched, Dee could feel Autumn’s pulse and heat against her own hand. 

‘Did you ever feel the same, Firefly?’

Firefly. Dee could remember when she’d come up with that. It seemed so clever and cute when she said it. Autumn seemed to agree at the time, grinning like an idiot as she stared at the fluttering jar. ‘Was that when we fell in love, Firefly?’ Dee tried to shake away the words, but they escaped her wire-caged mind before she could stop them.

She could remember the lights, the laughs, and the dark sky dotted with bright white. It felt like an impulse decision, but everything was planned when Autumn was involved. It even felt like her smiles that night were meant for Dee, meant to make her fall in love.

It was the night they'd slept in the treehouse for the first time. Autumn had brought a pair of jars and pulled out a list from her jean pocket. She had grinned as she yanked at Dee's hand and nearly tripped as she threw herself against the treehouse's ladder. Dee could barely shake off her smile. She had traced the soft glow on Autumn's freckled cheeks and watching the flow of her hair, the strands that blended with the sky.

Autumn's beauty and excitement as she ran and giggled was intoxicating. They both attempted to catch the little fireflies all night, but only Autumn seemed to succeed. That's where the nickname came from, Dee never was super creative.

Dee shook her head, finally shutting them out. She caged the memories that she didn't deserve to remember. She didn't need Autumn and definitely not now, not in here of all places.

'Why am I here? Why did you bring me here, Autumn?' Her eyes traced the wall previously hidden by Autumn's form; she didn't know why she was here, let alone why tears seemed to slip out like Dee wanted them there. Dee couldn't find it in herself to brush them back.

Then the lovely memories completely faded again. And Autumn slipped from Dee’s grasp, vanishing from under her fingertips. She stared, blinked and frowned, all at the spot Autumn used to sit. She wanted to scream, reach out and grab Autumn from her invisible plane, pull her close and keep her there. And knowing she couldn’t do it all so much worse. 

Dee could still remember the day Autumn had officially left her behind. She hadn’t even said a word to Dee, all she left was a bright red note. On the windshield of Dee’s car. 

It was like the cliche break-up letter. But Dee wanted to rip it up on the spot. Tear at its corners and watch it tumble to the ground, then run the paper over with her car. Then tear it up even more. But she hadn’t. 

Dee could see it from the treehouse, laying almost perfectly on the red sidewalk. She had read it over, sealed it, and dropped it where she stood. And, despite the wind, it stayed, trapped between cracks in the painted pathway. 

She stood, moving as if on instinct while her eyes stayed on the tattered and fading red. Before she knew it, the letter lay nestled in her palm. She ran her fingertips over the edges, hesitating as she flipped open the dry-glue flap. But she didn’t. She folded it back over but didn’t drop the dull paper. 

‘You didn’t even talk to me, Firefly. Why didn’t you say anything? No hug, or kiss, or candy smile? You just… left.’

Dee turned to stare at the towering trees from the cracking sidewalk. She traced the red planks of her treehouse and walked away as the building faded into the distance. The halves of Autumn’s note falling behind her.