The world moved on. I didn’t.
I was scrolling through TikTok and came across this video: https://www.tiktok.com/@swftposen/video/7169851542051327258
It hit me right in the heart — I had to write something.
Here’s what came out.
Title: The world moved on. I didn’t.
Spring bloomed in lilac and breeze, but Clarissa Dovey didn’t notice.
The field around the grave was far too quiet for a world that had lost Leonora Lesso. She laid the picnic blanket over the grass just like she had during those stolen lunches between classes, back when trees still whispered secrets and Lesso’s eyes held color and warmth.
She set down two porcelain cups, a lavender tea jar, and a batch of the shortbread biscuits Lesso used to love — the ones she had learned to make herself, because no one else remembered.
“You would’ve called this sentimental,” she murmured, adjusting a small bouquet of daffodils at the base of the gravestone. “But I know you’d eat at least two before pretending they were terrible.”
The silence replied, but Clarissa didn’t mind. She stayed for hours, reading aloud from Lesso’s favorite books, telling her how Tedros was still as stubborn as ever, how Sophie had started wearing more black than pink — as if trying, at last, to understand grief.
She spoke of sleepless nights. Of dreams where she saw a flicker of that dry laugh. Of days when she almost called her name in the hallway.
“I’m not sure time heals,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Sometimes, it just distances. And that hurts more.”
By the time the sun dipped behind the trees and dusk painted the sky violet, Clarissa hadn’t moved. She likely wouldn’t.
A soft presence came up behind her.
Without words, Anemone slipped a coat over Clarissa’s shoulders and gently took her arm, helping her to stand.
No questions were asked. No speeches given.
Just quiet support, steady and warm.
Slowly, Clarissa let herself be led away from the grave, back toward the school and the world she was trying to live in — even if only for now.