Social Pariah

NIGHT

Lucas couldn't sleep. He wasn't in the mood to sleep after disrespecting his mother...again. He wasn't angry with her at all. Lucas loved his stepmother dearly and he wouldn't exchange her for any other mother in the world.

Lucas had been stuck in a state of confusion and frustration in these past days. He was slowly changing, he can tell, but he wasn't sure if he was changing for the better or the worse. Lucas had a bad feeling it was the latter. Namya wasn't talking that much to him anymore and she seemed to have been more distant than usual. Lucas found it hard to decipher Namya. She's a mystery, a puzzle that's hard to solve and even if she was just a shy-looking nerd, Lucas knew that there was so much more to her than that.

The more Lucas thought about his school life, the more detached and alone he felt in the night. He couldn't comprehend any of his emotions and he couldn't take the fact that it was getting very harder to hide them.

"I wish father was still here. He knew the answer to everything."

Lucas's father wasn't perfect and Lucas didn't understand why. No one was perfect, he knew, but Lucas always held a perfect image of his father in his mind and until now, he couldn't seem to let it go. He had too many issues that he doubted if he should still exist in this world. Should he still live? Did he really deserve a place here on earth?

He looked outside the window and sighed.

"Lucas, look at the moon. He's always there in nighttime, hidden away in the dark, shining as the light of all these stars."

"But, Dad, the stars have their own light."

"Yes, they have because every star is unique. Don't you see what I'm trying to say? In the darkness, there's always this big light that helps the others see clearly their own light. The moon is bigger than the stars because he serves as a big light that guides all of the stars to shine their brightest."

"Ah, I see."

"God is the moon of our lives, Lucas. We are all unique. Sometimes, we forget how we shine. Sometimes, we remember how important we are in the sky. And in moments that pass, some of us die, just like those stars. In every challenge, don't give up. The darkness fools us all. It makes us think that everything is too late but when we remember the light within us, we start to realize that the darkness isn't as scary or as hopeless as it seems to be."

"Wow, I didn't realize that you were talking about God, Dad."

"God will always be with us. Don't ever forget that and do not forget how special and important you are in this world for all the stars in the sky bring brightness to the world, just how you bring brightness in mine."

Lucas stared at the moon. It was shining brighter than he had ever seen it shine. He thought about his father's words and in that moment, he smiled.

The night sky is really beautiful, he thought.

And he prayed.