The solitude between two strangers

"A full moon night is always special," is what Mayuri’s grandmother always used to say. The use of the past tense made her whole body shiver.

Mayuri always considered herself a moon lover, a person who found comfort in the beauty of a full moon. She always found herself staring at her, the moon, admiring her undeniable beauty and forever grateful for her presence. The moon knows all her secrets and all her problems. She manages to sooth away all her worries just by shining far away in infinite space. But this particular problem was hard to soothe away, even for the moon herself. The grief of losing the person you loved the most, the one person you knew since you were a little baby, it’s hard to overcome.

Mayuri thought that there’s nothing that could help her more than a summer night with a full moon and a beautiful ocean in front of her. The heat of the day transformed into sweet breezes that kissed every part of her body not protected by clothing. The soft harmony assembled by the fierce waves is adding to the magic of tonight. For most people, summer is about the beach and the sunny days, the ice cream cones in their hands while laughing with friends, and enjoying the summer break. For Mayuri and her grandma, it was always more about the night part of it; even though she loved the day part of summer, in her eyes it couldn’t compare with the duskiness of summer evenings. There’s a special type of comfort around that time, the one you feel when you are alone, enjoying what’s been crafted by God, specially for you, Mayuri suspects that her grandmother had a role in tonight's landscape as well.

She takes a deep breath in, inhaling the salty smell that invades the air around her. A small smile can’t help but appear on her face at the messy feelings in her stomach. But the peace she was getting used to was interrupted suddenly by a loud scream. The scream seemed to belong to someone with a deeper voice, maybe a man. Although the scream was loud, it didn’t sound like that person was terrified; it sounded more like a frustrated cry. The scream seemed to be a few yards away from her. She started looking around her, looking for the person who had voiced that scream. She finally spotted a dark figure, more of a shadow, standing tall on her right side, a three-minute walk from her. Mayuri's common sense was screaming at her to stay where she is, to ignore the foolish desire to find out who that was. What she considered to be the responsible voice in her head was ordering her to go home, telling her that going over there violates all the rules set in place to protect her. She didn’t know why she wanted to go there so much; she’s never been this reckless. Maybe she was blinded by pain, longing for comfort from another person, something she didn’t get often. Her instincts pushed her feet in the direction of the person who seemed as distraught as her, and with each step she took, she started feeling a confidence she previously never felt come to the surface.

As she got closer and closer, she realized by his figure that the person was a man, just like she predicted. This sighting, however, made her grow a little worried—what if he hurt her or, worse, kidnapped her? Just as she asked herself that question, she met face-to-face with a man—no, not a man, a boy, maybe 2 years older than Mayuri. The guy turned around and starred at her as she took him in, he’s wearing a white long shirt with a pair of beige jeans and messy blond hair is hanging over his forehead. Mayuri would be lying if she said that he wasn’t handsome, he was also taller than her. His eyes were clearly puffy, probably from crying. He tried to hide that by standing a little taller and draining the emotion from his face.

"Who are you?" he asks, his voice rough and deep.

"I’m Mayuri," she introduced herself, he didn’t respond.

"And your name is...?" asks Mayuri.

"Right, um, Ethan."

"Nice to meet you."

"What are you doing here?" he blurts out, clearly unsettled by Mayuri's presence.

"I heard a scream; I wanted to make sure you were okay."

"Oh" is all he says again.

"So... are you?" At first, he wanted to lie and tell her he was alright, but he felt the urge to be truthful.

"Umm," he hesitated, his words not wanting to come out. Mayuri noticed that and decided to go first.

"I’m not," she goes on. "I’m not fine, and part of the reason I sought you out was because I didn’t want to be alone," she confesses. Mayuri is surprised at how easily she said that; she always considered herself a more introverted type of person, but tonight it feels as though the moon cast a spell on her, making her go against all her rules and feeding into a version of herself not even she knew existed.

A few seconds passed, and they remained in the same position as before, with no words being said. Ethan is the first to break the silence.

"I am also not fine; I’m actually far from fine." His voice picked up volume as he said that.

"I understand" was all she could think to say at that moment, followed by "My grandmother... she, um, passed away yesterday." Her voice broke at the end; it was the first time she had said her new reality out loud. Ethan’s face fell a little; the anger in his eyes when she first met him transformed into sympathy as he said

"I understand that better than you can imagine," he said with a humorless laugh and then went on, "my older brother, Mike, overdosed." He took a deep breath and said, "He died, this morning actually," his eyes darting down to his dirty shoes as he said that.

"I’m so sorry, Ethan," she says, reaching out to touch his shoulder. He flinches at first, unused to her touch, but he doesn’t protest. She lets go of his shoulder and sits down on the cold sand; Ethan follows shortly.

"I’m sorry about your grandma too." Mayuri gave him a sad smile in return. "How, um, how was she?" he asked, and at that moment, her heart rejoiced a little at the question, she was so grateful for it.

"Amazing, the best soul I’ve ever met. She was my best friend; I could talk about anything to her; she was my comfort person. She basically raised me; my parents were too busy with work to even bother to come home, sometime even for weeks on end, but she was always there, until one day she wasn’t." she said this as tears started forming in her eyes.

"She seemed like a great person," he said, his words filled with regret and empathy towards her.

"I’m sure your brother was great as well," Mayuri said, trying her best to match the kindness he gave her with his words as well, but her words made Ethan’s brows form into a sharp “v”.

"It’s my fault that he died.” he begins “I-I should have pushed him harder to become sober; I didn’t try hard enough." By the time he finished his sentence, tears felt out of his eyes and onto his rosy cheeks. Mayuri didn’t hesitate to take his hand in hers.

"Don’t blame yourself for the decisions of others. The only thing that you could’ve done was try, which you did." He looked up at her, the reflection of the moon set in his ocean eyes, meeting Mayuri’s copper ones.

"You don’t know me; you shouldn’t care."

"But I do; I can’t help it. I treat you the way I want to be treated, because nobody around me seems to understand how to help me." She goes on "They think mere apologies and condolences are going to cut it, that their heartless words will somehow make me want to be the one dead a little less." Mayuri could feel her feelings shifting from pain to anger, so she took a deep breath to calm herself, the ocean air making her feel more at ease. "What I’m trying to say is that there are not many people around me that know how I’m feeling; I’m hoping we can be that person for each other." Her speech made her a little breathless, so she took a few rapid breaths to try to gain her breathing rhythm back. Ethan’s eyes boiled into hers, telling her more with them than words ever could. The air between them shifted, they could both feel the comfort between them as well as something else.

"I understand," he whispered so softly that if she wasn’t so close to him, she wouldn’t have understood him. Their hands were tied together by an invisible force.

For the rest of the night, they laid there on the chilly sand, looking at the stars, wondering if their lost ones were standing just like them, looking down with grief and sad smiles. Even if her heart still clenched for the love she can no longer give for a person that no longer breathes, her soul was more peaceful than it was before she set foot on this beach. Etan’s presence helped Mayuri feel less alone than before. Knowing that her feelings were felt by another person as well gave her comfort and gave her hope that they would get better because, in the depth of it all, they at least got each other, two strangers who shared the same pain, two souls influenced by a higher power to meet. The quote her grandmother used to say rang in her mind: "A full moon night is always special," and instead of feeling sad because of the person who said that, she smiled, realizing that a full moon night is special because of more factors than just pretty views.