Amongst the overgrown ivy and grass, I found her headstone.
Rosie Clark.
Sixteen was too young to die.
I quickly placed the flowers by the headstone, gutted that there weren’t any already there. It meant neither mum nor dad had placed any there recently. Yet it was the month she had died.
I rested my hand on the mottled grey stone, feeling the cold and the scratchy surface grate at my skin.
“Hi, Rosie.” I whispered into the air, feeling ridiculous. If only I could talk to the real her. What advice would she give for me now? Now that I had messed everything up. I looked around the church yard, but there was no one there. Just me and the empty space where Rosie should be.
I sat down next to the grave and rearranged the flowers for a minute, making sure the red roses all sat perfectly.
“I miss you.” I mumbled eventually, looking at the ladybugs on my hand. “I can’t stop thinking about you. Can’t stop wanting you here. Mum and dad are being…” I trailed off, not wanting to tell her what it was like. I don’t know why I did that. It’s not like she could actually hear me.
I looked around the churchyard again, but it was still empty of people. After a minute, I laid down on the grass, resting my head amongst the cold grass blades.
It was as good a place as any to be.
As kids, we would often climb into each other’s beds and tell stories. She always read my bedtime stories when I was really little. Her favourite was one about a ladybug. I think it had started her obsession with the little things in the first place.
“And Little Miss Ladybug flew all the way home…” I could practically hear her sing-song voice as my eyelids closed, laying in the grass. “Hop, skip, fly and dance. Wearing the prettiest red dress you can imagine.” Sleep found me. In my dreams, Rosie was reading to me again.
Chapter 17
My body was rebelling against my will, taunting me that I wanted to cry, but I fought it. All the way back from Salisbury and into Exeter station, I won out against it. The familiar lump in my throat was there, but I wouldn’t quite give way to the pressure.
Saturday. Leonora would be back.
My feet wandered back to Lafrowda. Even though it wasn’t quite dark, I held the keys between my fingers as Blake had taught me. Once I reached the halls, my feet didn’t take me to my block. They took me to Leonora’s instead.
I knocked on the door to her communal flat, still fighting the pressure in my throat.
Someone opened it – not someone I recognised. It was a lad, quite short, but somehow, he knew me.
“Leonora!” He called over his shoulder towards the kitchen.
“Yeah?” I could hear her voice call back.
“It’s your weird friend.”
“Weird?” I repeated at the accusation.
“Just kidding,” he said with a smile.
“Which one?” Leonora’s voice came back, but she had stood up and walked to the kitchen of the doorway.
At the sight of Leonora stood there, something cracked. I don’t know what it was, but I could no longer fight the lump in my throat. I felt I was falling down that black hole.
The tears came – big huge gasping cries, the kind that is not remotely Hollywood pretty. Just a complete mess.
Leonora leapt forward into the corridor and shooed the boy back.
“Out of my way,” she threw her arms around me. Suddenly I was crying into her shoulder as she pulled me into the flat. “Right, you’re going to tell me what this is now, okay?” She lifted my chin up. We were at a similar height, making it easy enough.
I nodded, not really knowing what else to do.
“I – I miss her.” I gasped a big breath again. “So much. Nobody else cares.”
“Right, in my room,” Leonora dragged me to her bedroom door, pushing past the boy who was still stood there with his jaw on the floor wondering what had happened. “Who is her?”
She sat me down on her bed, kneeling in front of me with wide eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” I ignored the question, needing to apologise desperately. I was still crying ridiculously heavily as she leaned over to her bedside cabinet to get a box of tissues. “I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just easier not to talk about it.”
“You don’t have to apologise –”
“I do,” I said firmly as I snatched about five tissues, trying to wipe the tears and mascara away. “It’s how I deal with it, Leonora. It is almost as if I don’t talk about it, then I can pretend it isn’t real.”
“What isn’t real, Ivy?” She softly squeezed my wrist, pulling the tissues away to see my face, with all the mascara streaking down my cheeks.
“Rosie’s dead.” I snatched another tissue. “It’s been six years and mum and dad don’t talk about her. I have to bring her up. Now they’re getting a divorce. They’re going to sell the house and throw out her things. It’s like she’s gone for good.” My tears took over once again, and I buckled forward, feeling the agony of it in my stomach.
“Oh, Ivy,” she hugged my head at the awkward angle I had created. “This has something to do with these.” She tapped the ladybugs on my hand. There were so many. Each one doing something different. One was flipping pancakes. One dancing. One reading a bedtime story to another little one. They were all memories of Rosie.
“She loved ladybugs,” I
