“Actually, sometimes talking about it with strangers is easier than talking about it with people I know. I guess that’s part of the appeal of group. At the beginning, you don’t know anyone, and yet you have something so deep in common that draws you all together. It’s the one place where I don’t feel like I have to hide anything. But I guess coming to meetings for so long has turned me into a bit of an over-sharer. Sorry if I caught you off guard.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. Sharing’s the point of being here. I’m just not used to it yet.”

“Who did you lose?”

Kavita stalls, taking a sip of juice. She feels the impulse to clench her fist, to divert away from her emotional pain, to punish herself. But she resists reaction, lets the impulse build and taper. She has promised to let those wounds heal.

“My brother,” she says at last. “His name was Sunil.”

“Was he older or younger?”

“Older.”

“Were the two of you close?”

“We were.”

“How long has it been?”

“Six months.” Two weeks and five days.

“That’s not long at all.”

“What about you?”

“Two years, just.”

Kavita wonders what her grief might look like two years from now. Will she be as comfortable as Brenda and Hawthorn, able to talk about her loss with relative ease, as if it is an everyday topic?

“He must’ve been young.”

“He was.”

“My sister, too.” Hawthorn eyes Kavita, closely. “So, I guess you’ll be headed over to the sibling loss group.” The way he says this is as much question as it is statement.

Wordlessly, she shakes her head, no.

A moment passes, and he says, “How about we grab a couple of chairs and start the circle. The loss by suicide group is over there tonight.”

Kavita gazes up at him. His eyes are dark and soft and open. “I recognize the pain in your eyes,” he says, anticipating her question. “I remember feeling the same way. Or at least my version of it, anyway. Survivors develop a kind of sixth sense about these things. Almost like we’re able to pick up on a pattern most of the world can’t see. It’s hard to explain. You just know.”

Kavita’s eyes sting. She blinks quickly. She doesn’t want to cry in front of a stranger, no matter how kind he is.

“Come on,” he says. “It’s okay.”

Kavita grabs her chair and carries it alongside Hawthorn. Already she feels comfortable by his side. Something about him feels familiar. But how is that possible? She doesn’t even know him.

Then she feels it. A subtle connection threaded between them, like a figure eight looping from his middle to hers. A connection through pain. Their loss, like no other, is what links them. Their pain is what makes them the same.