Flowers of Winter

Roo had barely realised that two months of summer were almost over. She hadn’t realised summer had begun in December, she didn’t take notice of the heat or sweat or the dead grass on people’s front lawns. Roo was too cold to notice summer, yet as the hottest summer day in years fell, she felt the heat tickle her skin.

Even as a girl, Roo loved summer. She loved running through the sprinkler, stripping down to nothing and making icy poles with her mother. Hundreds of people ran to the beach to enjoy the sun and the sea, Roo was just one body amongst hundreds. She attached the moment then to the graveyard, the memory of almost visiting Ruskin’s grave still raw in her mind. All those bodies on the beach lying side by side, only alive instead of dead. A graveyard of the living, perhaps.

As attractive young men strolled past, never once did she look at them. Never did Ruskin leave her mind, not then. No one was as wonderful as Ruskin and she couldn’t get that out of her head. Would she ever fall in love again?

She lay alone on the beach. She had found that being alone made her happier than having company, not that anything made her very happy. She couldn’t bare face her friends, let alone tell them she was hallucinating a dead boyfriend for months. Had they noticed?

Her thoughts were her closest friends. Mostly they were harsh and unforgiving, yet sometimes they were kind. You can do this, you are stronger than grief. Stronger than lost love. And for a while she could convince herself it was true, but eventually she stopped believing the sweet words. She wasn’t ready for happiness but parts of her knew that one day she would be. She held onto the hope that soon happiness would find her again and her grieving of Ruskin would be replaced with content memories. She had to believe in a day where she could smile and laugh once more.