Spring Comes Either Way
Winter, 2024.
Spring comes either way. Even when winter feels longer, or the cold becomes more unbearable than usual. Even when Julia thought it would never come, it came anyway.
That thought crossed her mind while she sat on the now barren sofa. It was an old sofa she and Aiden had found at a garage sale near their old neighborhood. Grey and boring, but fluffy enough to invite them to sit and lounge on it for hours. Their first piece of furniture, one they found immediately after moving in together.
Colorful draperies used to adorn the sofa: red ones she found at flea markets, another she bought during their short trip to Brazil, and one he got from his office friends. But now, the sofa was as barren as ever. Even the many stubborn coffee stains had been cleaned away, giving it a fresh enough look for people to mistake it as new.
“What do you want to do with this sofa?” Julia had asked Aiden before. “Will you take it?”
Aiden stopped for a moment, his hands still carrying the large box filled with his many video games.
He stared at her for a while. A minute passed as he wavered before answering.
“Do you want it?” he asked in return.
Julia shook her head. “It won’t fit in my new place.”
Aiden smiled at her. “Then let’s leave it here. I think the new tenant would love it.”
Julia nodded, her hand gently caressing the surface of the sofa. How long had it been since they last spent time together on it? A month? A year? She barely remembered.
It used to be their favorite spot in the room, where they spent nights watching scary movies or playing Aiden’s gory games. A place where they spent mornings eating simple breakfasts while watching the morning news and drinking coffee together.
Sighing, Julia took a seat on the sofa and looked around the room. All the boxes had been neatly packed and were ready for her and Aiden.
Aiden, being the neat freak that he was, had thoroughly divided their belongings into three sections: hers, his, and the ones they would leave behind.
“Jules. My car is coming in a few minutes,” Aiden said.
“Yeah,” was all she could say.
Aiden bowed his head, pausing for a long moment before calmly walking toward her. Without hesitation, he knelt in front of her and began softly massaging her ankle, a gesture they were both too familiar with.
He smiled at her gently, the same bright smile that once made her fall madly for him.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to wait here with you?” he asked. His bright blue eyes stared right into hers behind those black-rimmed glasses.
“I can manage,” she answered.
For what felt like a long minute, Aiden squeezed her hands tightly. Julia could tell this would be it. A small moment. The very last one before they truly said goodbye.
It was strange how everything had come to this moment—a love that once burned brightly between them like an ember, a comfort that slowly turned into routine, and a routine that eventually became an obligation.
Spring, 2016
They were once madly in love: the cheerleader and the nerd in her physics class. The stellar student and her, a girl who barely ever got past a B+ in any of her classes.
A lot of her friends wondered how they even came to be. She was high in the hierarchy, a social queen loved and adored by everyone, while he was the prickly nerd who preferred the company of his laptop over other kids his age.
But she knew what others didn’t. That beyond those messy clumps of brown hair lay the bluest pair of eyes she had ever seen. Eyes that had always seen her as more than just the cute cheerleader. Eyes that stayed true and loving for many years to come.
“You’re doing the equation wrong.”
That was the first sentence Aiden ever said to her.
“Which one?” she asked, confused.
Just a week ago, the teacher had assigned students into groups. She called it a complementary program, where smart students were paired with the not-so-smart ones. Julia just happened to be one of the not-so-smart students, paired with what the teacher called the smartest student in their grade.
They had spent the previous week in silence. No introductions, no greetings, just careful nods exchanged between each other.
Julia didn’t think much of it. He was either another guy who cared more about the length of her skirt, or someone who preferred to ignore her entirely.
That was until he suddenly spoke to her.
“This part. You’re misplacing the signs,” the guy said again with a sigh.
Julia glanced at her notes, at the many numbers and symbols she had copied down as best as she could. They looked like an alien language to her—random formulas and equations she barely understood.
“Huh? I...” she stuttered. “Is it?”
The guy studied her notes again, his eyes moving across the scribbles, erased marks, and crooked formulas scattered across the page.
“Did you write all this?” he asked.
She nodded.
“You got a lot of them wrong,” he said, pointing here and there with his pencil. “This part. And this one too...”
Julia quietly lowered her head.
“Oh...” he suddenly said. “But you got this one right.”
Julia looked toward the formula he pointed at.
Above the grey smudges where she had erased the page over and over again sat the one formula she had finally managed to understand after trying so many times.
“Good work,” he said with a wide smile.
His eyes, Julia noticed then, were the brightest blue she had ever seen. Like the sky after the rain had passed. They seemed even brighter whenever he smiled, small crinkles forming at the corners of his eyes.
If only he took off those thick glasses, he would probably be more popular than half the boys on the football team.
The thought made Julia pause for a second.
What was she even thinking? She barely knew him.
“I’m not that good at studying,” she admitted.
“I know,” the guy answered calmly.
Of course he knew. That was the entire reason they had been paired together.
He leaned slightly closer, pointing at another section of her notes.
“But that doesn’t mean you didn’t try,” he said. “And as far as effort goes, you did great.”
Then he simply returned to his notebook, listening intently to the teacher as if he hadn’t just said the sweetest thing any boy had ever said to her.
“Uhm... I’m Julia,” she said, holding out her hand.
The guy stared at it for a second before finally taking it.
“Aiden,” he answered with a smile.
Maybe that was how it all began.
Just a name, a handshake, a few comments on her notes, and the brightest blue eyes she had seen one quiet morning. And somehow, Julia remembered all of it for years.
