Poppies, and Lake Geneva.

She and I walked here every day after school, every weekend at midnight. Our favorite spot is down at the flowing edge where the water meets the sand, as it seems to abscond into the glimmering reservoir. We’d do just about anything – test to see if our cells phones would float in the water, to splashing each other like we were six, to just soaking our feet and pretending we were a snobby celebrity at a spa.

But three years ago, these statuesque red-orange poppies started to spring up everywhere. It became a tradition for me to pick a flower, and her to pick a flower, and we tango like the silly little girls we knew still remained in our soul.

These flowers that brought me such freedom, now only causes me sorrow, for they remind me of her.

About a year after we discovered the poppies, she had begun growning a tumor in her brain. She would get massive migranes, and after a while she couldn’t take it. Eventually, my best friend had moved on.

These poppies are all I have.