Sunflower | h.s

28

Aaliyah Moreno

Me and Harry are back on the hill. I'm resting my head on Harry's lap as his fingers tangle loosely in my hair. My book rests against my thighs as my legs bend into a triangle and my feet rest on the grass. I read my book as Harry laughs and picks some of the watermelon out my hair. I feel the coldness of his rings caress my forehead as he brushes his fingers along it, making a cold shiver run up my spine.

"Read to me." He says while smiling and looking down at me. I lift my neck up slightly so I my eyes are met with his as I give him a light smile back. I could feel my cheeks go bright red from blushing.

"Come on." He says while nudging me lightly with his finger making me flinch slightly because I was really ticklish.

"No. Don't do that it tickles" I say while laughing slightly as I go to read the folded over corner of the already worn book.

"Oh what? This tickles?" He asks and before I had a chance to think, his forefinger was under my chin as he caressed my skin making me laugh.

"Harry" I giggle while trying to move. His hands went to both my sides as he tickled my stomach making me turn around onto my front while laughing.

"Okay. Okay. Read your book." He says in defeat as he knew I would win. I give him a sarcastic smile making him laugh slightly as I turn to the page I was going to read as I clear my throat. Harry's arm resumes to play with my hair as I read aloud:

// sunflowers sometimes don't understand how hard they try to get to the surface. Or how much effort they put in to helping themselves grow. That's why I like to think of a sunflowers leaves as "milestones"

I like to believe that every new leaf that grows on your stem shows where you have been to get where you are now. Leaves are the things that help maximise our opportunities for everything. In a sunflowers case, the leaves help catch light and falling rain to keep the soil in a good enough condition so that the sunflower may continue to grow. For humans, we need to take new opportunities and embrace every chance we get that comes our way as it can develop us.

But what I'm saying here is that, sunflowers don't normally know they've grown leaves as they grow tall enough and end up towering over them. Sunflowers forget where they came from and how the leaves actually contribute to a big deal of where they got to currently. The leaves don't go unnoticed by us humans, we sometimes just misinterpret them.

Sunflowers themselves sometimes forget how hard they worked to get where they are, or maybe sometimes they don't believe that they've actually blossomed, maybe out of pure shock at the fact they did it.

In this case, don't be a sunflower. Don't let your hard work go unrecognised or have a cold shoulder turned towards them. Embrace every part of your life because everything that's happened in your past has helped you blossom to the surface because you did it.

You're here.

So in this case. Instead of being the sunflower, be the leaves that grow on it as well as the roots, embrace it all. There will be a time where you be a sunflower, not just yet though! We haven't got long to go, I promise. But for now, see yourself as a leaf. As a "milestone" in which you can better yourself from every minute of every day. We will get there.

So now I welcome you to the second stage. Your petals blossoming. The time your character really begins to develop.\\