She turned to a fresh page. At the top, she wrote: November 7th. First snow. Unofficial change of season.
She poured the tea and sat by the frosted glass. A text from her sister: You okay? First snow. Feels early this year. Marta typed back: Seasons change on their own schedule. Sent it. Then added: I’m okay. The second part felt less true.
But people liked their lines. Their before and after. Their summer ends August 31st and spring begins March 20th . Marta had been the same way. She and Sam had celebrated the equinoxes like holidays—candles lit, a bottle of wine, a shared notebook where they wrote down what they were leaving behind and what they hoped would grow. change of season dates
What I hope will grow: the courage to stop looking for the day it ended, and start looking for the day I begin again.
She finished her tea. The snow was sticking now, turning the street into a postcard. She thought about Sam’s hands, the way he’d scrape ice off her windshield without being asked. She thought about how he’d said I love you the first time on a rainy April afternoon, the exact date lost to her now, which felt like a betrayal. She turned to a fresh page
Outside, the world had turned white. Not a line drawn between fall and winter—just snow on red leaves, one season still bleeding into the next, refusing to choose a date. And Marta, for the first time in weeks, poured herself another cup of tea and watched it happen without checking her phone for an official announcement.
Then, underneath: What I’m leaving behind: the idea that love has an expiration date stamped somewhere, if only I could find it. Unofficial change of season
The truth was, there had been no single date for the end of them. No dramatic November 7th. It had been a slow rot, like October pretending to be summer one day and then biting cold the next. Small cruelties. Silences that stretched from hours into days. A Tuesday when he forgot to pick her up from work. A Thursday when she realized she hadn’t kissed him in a week. The final conversation happened on a Tuesday, but the relationship had ended sometime in August, during a heatwave, when they sat on the same couch without touching and watched a movie neither of them could name afterward.