We said goodbye on the Williamsburg Bridge, which is a very dramatic place to say goodbye, but Priya has always had a flair for the dramatic and I love her for it.
She's moving to London. A good job, a good reason, a whole good future waiting. All the things you're supposed to be happy about. I am happy about them. I'm also a little bit broken about them, which nobody warns you is allowed to be both at once.
We took the J into Williamsburg one last time, got tacos in the LES beforehand, and then decided to walk the bridge back toward Manhattan on foot the way we did our first month here, when we were broke and everything was free if you were willing to walk far enough.
Halfway across, the wind coming off the East River, she grabbed my hand. "Remember when we cried on this exact bridge because we couldn't afford rent?"
We did remember. We laughed and then we cried again, which is very on-brand for us. Two Indian girls sobbing on the Williamsburg Bridge while cyclists swerved around us muttering. Peak New York.
Here's what I've learned. The friendships you make far from home hit different. Priya was my sister when my actual family was ten thousand miles away. She knew what it meant when I got quiet. She fed me khichdi when I was sick. She sat with me through the homesickness I never told my mother about.
And now we said goodbye on the Williamsburg Bridge and I have to figure out New York without her, which feels a little like learning to walk again.
Everyone talks about love like it's romance. But this loss, this ache of a friend leaving, is its own kind of heartbreak nobody makes movies about. Well, Bollywood does, actually. Kajol and Kajol's whole filmography, honestly.
We hugged at Delancey until the crowd got weird about it. Then she went one way and I went the other, and the city just absorbed us both like it always does.
We said goodbye on the Williamsburg Bridge, and I walked home lighter and heavier all at once.
Some people are just chapters. Doesn't make them mean less.
Love,