Then she saw the old man.
Autumn is the season of harvest, but also of rot. She learned that some loves are not meant to survive the frost. They are annuals, not perennials. Beautiful. Brief. True, for their time. 4 seasons dublin
Aisling smiled. It was a small smile, barely a movement of muscle. But it was real. It was winter, and she was still here. The dark had not swallowed her. The cold had not killed her. Then she saw the old man
She pulled out her phone. She looked at Lorcan’s number, then at the old man’s—she had never saved it. She put the phone away. They are annuals, not perennials
The winter had lasted three years, or so it felt to Aisling. Not the calendar winter, but the one she carried inside—a dense, frozen knot that had taken root the day she buried her mother under a sky the colour of wet slate.