Wistful notes spoke of loneliness, as solitary as the final birdsong of autumn or the trill of summer’s last cicada before the wintry freeze.

The strong floral fragrance was sickening, suffocating, and threatened to snuff out any lingering remainder of fragile lilac—of the mother she’d loved so, so much.

She’d sworn she wouldn’t end up like her little brother, but loneliness didn’t arrive with flashing bulbs and a warning label. The descent was as simple and complex as a faked smile, white lies about being “okay,” and the nod and acceptance as her own peers didn’t delve deeper, shutting the coffin lid for her.

On her darkest days, the memories of the splintered floorboards crept in, along with the drip, drip, drip of old plumbing that had never been fixed. She still remembered the shouts from the others in the crew and how the mingle of voices was at first familiar and over time had grown as distant as the sea.

She would never forget how his soul was lonely as the moon they’d met under, and how, for several brief moments, she’d been able to chase the loneliness away.

He knew too well the sting of loneliness and how over time it stole you away, piece by piece, until a mere shell remained.

She was no better than the shells by her feet, tumbling this way and that at the beck and call of the waves.

He stroked her back and kept a fierce grip on her like she’d fade away into one of the thousands of ghosts in this cemetery.

Everyone’s searching for someone to end the pain of loneliness. Even the darkest of souls wants a shot at redemption.