Losing a year is especially tough when so much of your life has been building toward it – and so much is said to hinge upon it. Ally, a Cape Town matric student, describes the ways the pandemic has disrupted her life, but also put her in touch with a greater landscape of inequality and loss. She tells us what she’s had to let go of and what she's still holding out for, hanging on to hope amidst a future full of uncertainty.