Plant Your Hope

I’ve always kept that photo taped to my wall. As soon as you took it, I pulled it straight out of Maria’s Polaroid camera and stuck it over the headboard of my bed. I can picture it exactly right now, even though I’m nowhere near it.

It’s all three of us tangled together on the floor. Leah, you’re holding the camera, and you can just see the corner of your arm. There’s a tiny line of brown leftover from the homemade henna tattoos we had. We’re all laughing, unsurprisingly, and my hair is almost completely covering my face, a ginger curtain. Maria’s squished into the middle, sparking up her cigarette. The little sparks from the ignition of her lighter glisten on the photo.

Maria always has her camera on her, it’s her prized possession. She pulls her dark hair to the side in a plait, just so she can hang it around her neck. We met when her family moved next door and she stumbled into my back garden, demanding that I played with her. We haven’t been apart much since.

You snowballed into our life when we went up to secondary school, though. I had no idea who this silly blonde girl was. She was just the voice who cracked jokes through boring art lessons, and suddenly, Maria and I were best friends with her.

My mum never liked you much, that’s true. If it makes you feel any better, she only likes Maria because we practically grew up together. Mum doesn’t like me decorating my room how I want, or me cutting my hair. She’s never been a big fan of change.

That’s why I’m here now, looking for you over the cliff. If you’re anywhere, you’re here. You told us countless times that this was your favourite place, and now I can’t seem to stop coming back. I don’t like change either. I want it back how it was before.

Before you got that cancer that none of us could pronounce. You told us that because you couldn’t say it, it meant that you didn’t have it. Maria just wouldn’t let us be upset, ever. We had a list of things to do every day that she’d planned. I still have my list somewhere.

Me, I couldn’t stop caring. I still can’t. You were never cremated, but I wish you would’ve been. We all knew you’d want to have been scattered here, down into the ocean you loved so much. I spend most of my time loving it on your behalf now.

I come up here whenever I need to tell you something, and I end up scribbling it down on a piece of paper. All the words you’ll never hear again, I throw them out to the sea and hope that they’ll find you. I’m not sure what I believe, but I know I believe in you.