Letters from a Star

4 | nyx

aurora

People have always feared the darkness. It's been a funny thing for me to think of: the fact that there are human beings who don't look out into the night and immediately feel comforted by it. The silence, the pure raw silence when the world is asleep and there isn't any pressure to exist in a certain way, or to be okay. I mean, sure, the daytime has cool stuff. Like children playing in the sunlight, dogs taking a swim, or students running through the pouring rain to get to their next class. But the night. The stars, the constellations, the moon, and the planets. Northern Lights. Pleiades. Meteor showers. And not only that, but people laying on their roofs to see all of this, little lights shining through bedroom windows for those kids who are scared of the dark. People stumbling through doors with wide smiles on their faces after a long day of excitement, and you can't help but wonder what they were up to and feel happy for them.

The daytime shows us the lives that want to be shared. But the night knows our souls. Maybe that was one of the reasons why everyone was so afraid of Nyx. Greek Goddess of the night. I mean, all she ever did was do her duty, never harmed anyone...Unless you harmed her children, then watch out for yourself.

But in reality, they were all just scared of the dark. They were scared of not knowing what was there. Because us human beings have a thirst for knowledge and power, and for something to have power or control over us...That freaks everyone out. No one wants to feel helpless.

Some people out there only lived at night. Nightwatchers, we called them. I had always longed to know more about them, but the information we had was limited. Schools didn't like us getting ideas.

I wondered if they were happy, living in the dark. Away from everything else. And a lot of the time, I used to think that if I didn't have so much to stay for––so many people who needed me––I would become one of them myself, if I knew how to.

Step 2: Do something that makes you feel calm, something that you don't have to pretend to be happy while doing.

That was Ishani's most recent step. The one I was currently executing, My best friend's journal lay beside me on the roof, sort of like a way of having her with me again. The roof was always our spot; we would watch sunsets and sunrises and stars and eclipses and talk about school and gossip and first loves and heartbreaks and we fell out up there and made up again.

Everything circled back to my roof. That was the first thing that popped into my head when I read Ishani's letter tonight. It was something I had been avoiding, in the fear of it returning too many memories. But it brought me the most calm at the worst moments.

Ishi would have known I'd pick the roof. She'd have known that I would lay there listening to the radio or have a record playing in my room, as I allowed my thoughts to wander. Feeling the cold sting of winter on my skin as the muffled music travelled through the air was as though I was in freefall. Except I knew someone would catch me when I fell.

She was right. She always was. I hadn't felt that calm in a month.

That was when a wave of guilt washed over me, and I sat up so fast that it was a surprise I didn't fall. The heck did I think I was doing, laying there feeling all giddy and relaxed, when my best friend wasn't even there anymore? There were still people, people I needed to help. My parents were worrying about my future and I was taking a big fat break instead of studying or doing something useful. Ishi's parents were mourning their daughter and I wasn't helping them enough with the cleaning and packing to make things easier. Saanvi and Aaryan were so young, they needed an older sister figure...Not that I was trying to replace Ishani, I just––ugh it was all so complicated.