My best friend Reva left New York this week. I helped her pack, which I now know was a terrible idea and also the only thing I could've done.
Her apartment was a fourth-floor walkup in Bushwick off the Jefferson L stop. We carried every piece of her life down those stairs — I counted, it's 54 steps, I will never forget it — and loaded a U-Haul in the rain while a guy outside the taco spot watched us with mild interest.
We met my first month in the city. She's the one who taught me which subway doors open onto the stairs. She held my hair the night I cried over a boy who did not deserve one single tear. Four years of being each other's person.
And now she's moving to Austin for a job and a boy who, for once, actually does deserve her.
Here's the thing about a best friend leaving New York. It's not a fight. There's no villain. She's happy, I'm happy for her, and I am also completely hollowed out. Nobody warns you about the grief that lives inside a good thing.
We taped the last box and sat on her bare floor eating cold samosas from the Indian spot on Knickerbocker, and neither of us said the big stuff. We just sat. Sometimes love is just two people sitting on a floor not saying it.
There's a scene in every Bollywood film where someone runs after the train. I did not run after the U-Haul. I stood on Jefferson and waved like an idiot until it turned the corner.
New York is going to feel different without her in it. The L train especially. Everywhere especially.
We'll visit. We'll call. I know. But a best friend leaving New York means the version of the city you built together is just — gone. A whole little world, boxed up and driven south.
Call the person who taught you the subway doors.
Love,