My best friend here, Dev, is leaving New York. Moving to Austin for a job, a real apartment, a life that costs less than a kidney. I'm happy for him. I'm also completely not okay, and I'm allowed to be both.
We walked across the Williamsburg Bridge on Sunday because that's our thing. We started doing it our first year here, broke and overwhelmed, taking the L to Bedford and then walking back over the bridge into Manhattan because the views were free and we couldn't afford anything that wasn't.
Nobody tells you that when a friend leaves New York, it's not just them you lose. It's the version of the city you built together. The bodega guy on Grand who knew our order. The specific bench. The inside jokes mapped onto street corners. He's taking half the map with him.
We didn't say much on the bridge. Dev pointed at the skyline and said "this stupid beautiful city" and I said "yeah" because if I said more I'd have unraveled right there over the East River.
He was my first real friend here. The one who picked up at 2am. The one who came over with biryani the week I got dumped and didn't make me talk. You don't replace that. You just carry it.
I've been so focused on the grand love stuff, romance, the whole Bollywood ending, that I forgot the quiet truth. Friendship is the love story that actually held me up these three years. Dev held me up.
We got to the Manhattan side and hugged for too long and a tourist asked us to move because we were blocking the photo. We laughed. Very on-brand for this city to interrupt our grief for a content opportunity.
He leaves in two weeks. I'm not ready. I won't be.
Some people don't leave your life. They just move to a part of it you have to fly to.
Love,