‹ Prequel: Purple Hearts
Hope
Remembering
Franky was looking forward to tomorrow. It was to be her daughter Hope’s 18th birthday and a huge party was planned for everyone, practically everyone she knew and undoubtedly everyone that Hope knew would be there and that was going to make for some very huge party.
Franky, now 36 years old went to the window of her bedroom and looked out at some of the preparations taking place. Her Dad was there with Billie and Uncle Mike, they were hanging twinkly lights in amongst the trees, a few friends of Hopes were washing down chairs and tables. She’d been busy most of the day preparing food but Franky had just felt the need to get away from the hustle and bustle, just for a moment so she’d made herself a cup of tea and had come here, just for about half an hour. She looked at the dress hanging there on the wardrobe, a purple dress, still her favourite colour then she remembered how she’d died her hair with a purple streak when she was younger, many years ago.
Suddenly she felt like taking a look at how she used to look with her purple streak so going into her drawer she pulled out a couple of photograph albums.
Smiling widely she remembered back to when she’d had her purple streak done, right back to when she was 14 years old and her parents had thrown her a surprise party. Everyone was there, Charlie her old friend from England had been flown over, her Dad had invited MCR to the party and of course the rest of Green Day and their families were there too.
She’d loved him even then, Billie.
She’d loved him for what seemed like forever.
And they’d come a long way because it had seemed like ages ago since those photographs were taken, 22 years ago to be exact and so much had happened since then.
Flicking through some more photographs she found the one that the nurses had taken of her, Billie and little Hope minutes after she’d been born.
Billie hadn’t changed hardly at all she thought as she touched his face in the photograph, he still had this mop of unruly dark hair, sometimes helped along with the bottle of black dye but nowadays he had a few grey hairs at the sides, a few more creases were visible around his eyes and he’d had a few more tattoos done, of course. But still her favourite tattoo of his was the soccer ball, her next favourite being the tattoo of her name that he’d had on his wrist and had had it for months before she’d even known it was there and now she had one to match, his name on her wrist with the purple heart tattoo next to it the one she said she’d always get done when she’d met ‘the one.’
Well she had it done because ‘her one’ was Billie. It had always been obvious, always.
Flicking through some more pictures she then found a group shot, taken the day after she’d given birth to Hope. She was still in the hospital and nearly everyone was there, Billie and herself, Charlie, Adrienne, Joey, Jacob, Emily, Ramona, Julia, Tre, Mike and Jen with their little baby boy Sam who had only been born that very morning, all of them, squeezed around her bed and smiling widely, arms around each other.
But one of them was no longer here, one of them had died and things had never been the same since.
So much had happened since that day…
Franky, now 36 years old went to the window of her bedroom and looked out at some of the preparations taking place. Her Dad was there with Billie and Uncle Mike, they were hanging twinkly lights in amongst the trees, a few friends of Hopes were washing down chairs and tables. She’d been busy most of the day preparing food but Franky had just felt the need to get away from the hustle and bustle, just for a moment so she’d made herself a cup of tea and had come here, just for about half an hour. She looked at the dress hanging there on the wardrobe, a purple dress, still her favourite colour then she remembered how she’d died her hair with a purple streak when she was younger, many years ago.
Suddenly she felt like taking a look at how she used to look with her purple streak so going into her drawer she pulled out a couple of photograph albums.
Smiling widely she remembered back to when she’d had her purple streak done, right back to when she was 14 years old and her parents had thrown her a surprise party. Everyone was there, Charlie her old friend from England had been flown over, her Dad had invited MCR to the party and of course the rest of Green Day and their families were there too.
She’d loved him even then, Billie.
She’d loved him for what seemed like forever.
And they’d come a long way because it had seemed like ages ago since those photographs were taken, 22 years ago to be exact and so much had happened since then.
Flicking through some more photographs she found the one that the nurses had taken of her, Billie and little Hope minutes after she’d been born.
Billie hadn’t changed hardly at all she thought as she touched his face in the photograph, he still had this mop of unruly dark hair, sometimes helped along with the bottle of black dye but nowadays he had a few grey hairs at the sides, a few more creases were visible around his eyes and he’d had a few more tattoos done, of course. But still her favourite tattoo of his was the soccer ball, her next favourite being the tattoo of her name that he’d had on his wrist and had had it for months before she’d even known it was there and now she had one to match, his name on her wrist with the purple heart tattoo next to it the one she said she’d always get done when she’d met ‘the one.’
Well she had it done because ‘her one’ was Billie. It had always been obvious, always.
Flicking through some more pictures she then found a group shot, taken the day after she’d given birth to Hope. She was still in the hospital and nearly everyone was there, Billie and herself, Charlie, Adrienne, Joey, Jacob, Emily, Ramona, Julia, Tre, Mike and Jen with their little baby boy Sam who had only been born that very morning, all of them, squeezed around her bed and smiling widely, arms around each other.
But one of them was no longer here, one of them had died and things had never been the same since.
So much had happened since that day…