Just One Night

I wish somebody had told me how an emotion can change in an instant. One second, I was ready to explode, scream and shout and stomp my feet. The next, she smiled, small and sad, and I was defeated. Nothing mattered. We stood on the dock, the only source of light being the moon. It was the sort of thing that could be romantic, that's what she had told me. I thought it was magical. The moon was the queen, the stars never leaving her side. They were forever faithful to their monarch, like something out of a fairy tale. I suppose fairy tales are often romantic, but I never thought much of it. Maybe Cassie and I thought of it the same way, we just had different words to describe it. I considered asking her, but this was a moment of silence that I knew shouldn't be broken. Even somebody as socially challenged as I was could figure that out.

Sometimes silence was an awkward break, when nobody could figure out what to say. But times like this were different. Right now we both knew there was nothing that needed to be said anymore. We sat down at the edge of the dock, my feet reaching down to brush against the ocean. Little waves tickled my feet, before retreating further in.

“Do you know why there are waves?” She asked, her head tilting back to face the sky. I hadn't expected the silence to break, especially so suddenly.

“Something about the moon, right?” I guessed, and she nodded.

“Exactly,” She chirped, and I smiled, proud I had guessed correctly.

“You see, the moon was a beautiful young women before,” She began, and I nodded along so I wouldn't appear stupid. “She would sing every evening, dancing along with the stars. Each night, the ocean would watch, happy just to witness something so beautiful. When he finally worked up the nerve to dance with her, she was delighted. From that night on, they danced and danced until the sun came up. Every spare moment they had would be spent together, twirling across the universe. The stars felt betrayed, though, no longer getting the attention they were once awarded with. They grew so jealous, that they wanted revenge, they wanted their moon back,” She paused, swinging her legs back and forth. “So, they kidnapped her. She was sent back to the sky, forced to stay there with the stars. Every night, the ocean still reaches up for the woman he loved, trying desperately to be with her again,” With that, Cassie let out a long, sad sigh, her eyes never diverting from the stars.

“So, the stars aren't her faithful servants then?” I asked with a frown.

“Of course they're faithful! They would never leave her side,” Cassie told me, suddenly defensive.

And that's when the awkward silence began. It wasn't the same comfortable silence from before. Actually, she seemed content. I, however, felt as though my tongue was made of lead. While I squirmed around, she leaned back. Her legs hung down by the water, while her arms supported her weight. With her arms so close, I could see the puckered white scars painted across her skin.

“Am I really the only person you told?” I asked, turning to look at her, though I quickly looked away when she made eye contact. My cheeks felt warm, and I refused to look anywhere but my hands

“Yes,” She answered, plain and simple. I knew she would have the same smile from before. Melancholy; belonging to a person who had given up.

“Why me?” She didn't know me, nobody did. I kept to myself. Not because I particularly wanted to, but because I often found myself incapable of connecting with people. I was detatched.

Not with her, though. Maybe I was doing something different, but I think it was just her. Cassie was holding the strings to a million little balloons, and she wouldn't let a single one float away. Was that why she was so defeated? So much effort put into helping others, so little time into herself. I wonder if anybody had ever bothered to ask her how she was doing. Not that I was, either. I was taking her kindness and using it for my own advantage.

She leaned forward, staring at the side of my face, “Because I knew you could keep a secret.”

“Why, because I have no friends to tell?” I asked, offended. I expected her to reassure me, but she just shrugged.

“Yeah, maybe,” She answered, her honestly both a breath of fresh air and a slap in the face.

“And you're really not going to get help for... that?” My anger from before was resurfacing. Earlier she had shown me her scars, self-inflicted wounds crawling up her arms. I was surprised, but mostly angry. She had tons of friends, everybody loved her, what did she have to be sad about? Maybe the anger showed, because she seemed to understand. That's when she smiled.

“I thought that's what I was doing.”

I looked over at her, at last, blinking back shock. I hadn't thought of things like that, not for a second. I had selfishly been thinking she had spoken to me just to make me feel better. But was it really so wrong that I wanted something to be about me for once? That I wanted to be noticed?

“But if you tell anybody, I'll have to shave your eyebrows off or, I don't know, kill you,” She added, smirking.

I stuttered out a stream of words in hope of forming a sentence. Her laughed broke through my efforts, quickly swallowed by the roar of the ocean.

“I'm kidding,” She said through a fit of giggles, “Lighten up, just for tonight, all right?”

And I'm not going to pretend everything changed right with those words. It wasn't that easy. What did happen, though, it was still amazing. We talked. I know that doesn't seem like much for most people, but I that was something I never did. And we talked about everything. Why she cut and all the way down to the little things like favorite TV shows. All things important, all things trivial. We talked until the sun began to peek it's head above the horizon. Even then, the conversation continued on. I knew we would have to part ways soon, and that this wouldn't happen again afterwards, but I buried those thoughts deep in the back of my mind.

It wasn't until her phone went off that those thoughts flew back, front and center. A part of me was hoping she would just ignore it. The rational side knew that the night, now day, couldn't last forever. Just as I knew she would, she flipped her phone open, answering with a perky hello. Back to her usual self in a split second, just like that.

She shut her phone with a sigh, taking a moment to just look at me. We both knew that this wasn't going to happen anymore. From then on, I wouldn't talk to her. Even if I did, it wouldn't be that same. I would always cling to this moment, cherish every word.

“So, um, I'll see you on Monday then?” She offered, standing up. See her, maybe, and I knew I would reach out for more. At school, the stars would have her again, though. I knew that I was the ocean, she was the moon.