For the first time since arriving in this world Aditya had no urgent task sitting on his desk.
The app's core was done. The trades were running steadily. The gym routine was set. Dr. Priya's meal plan was being followed without fail. Everything that needed to be put in place had been put in place.
For one day at least, there was nothing pressing.
He sat at his desk staring at his notebook for about three minutes before he got restless.
He closed it, grabbed his jacket and walked out.
He had been so locked in since arriving that he had barely looked up long enough to actually see the city around him.
New York in 2011.
He had seen it in movies obviously. Everyone had. But actually walking through it was different from what he had imagined. It was louder than he expected. More crowded. The streets smelled like exhaust and food carts and something he couldn't name. Buildings everywhere, blocking the sky from every angle, people moving in every direction with the kind of focused urgency that made him feel slightly in the way just standing still.
He walked without direction, hands in his jacket pockets, just looking around like a tourist who hadn't bought a camera yet.
A food cart on one corner was selling something that smelled incredible. He stopped and bought whatever it was without asking what it was called. It turned out to be a halal chicken wrap and it was genuinely excellent.
He ate it standing on the pavement watching traffic go past.
'Not bad', he thought. 'Not home but not bad.'
He had grown up eating his mother's cooking — proper home made Indian food, the kind that took hours and whose smell alone was enough to intensify his hunger before he even reached the kitchen. American food was fine. Some of it was actually good. But it didn't hit the same way and he doubted it ever would.
He kept walking.
He passed a music store with its door propped open. Old rock playing from inside, the kind of guitar heavy stuff that his college friends used to debate endlessly.
He was more of a Kannada and Hindi film songs person. Some English stuff too — but only the big popular ones that everyone knew. The kind of songs that came on everywhere and you just ended up knowing all the words without trying. Anything beyond that and he had never really bothered. American rock playing in a music store meant nothing to him.
He kept walking.
A little further down the road he found a small cafe tucked between two larger buildings. Nothing fancy. Just a hand painted sign above the door and a warm light inside.
He had been walking for nearly two hours. His legs were fine — Marcus would have been pleased — but he was ready to sit down.
He went in and ordered a coffee and a sandwich and picked a table near the window.
For a while he just sat and looked outside at the street.
He pulled out his phone and stared at it for a moment.
No messages. No group chat. Nothing.
Obviously. He wasn't in his world.
His phone here was just a device — a tool with a fake identity attached to it and Khushi running quietly in the background. Nothing more.
He put it back in his pocket and looked out the window.
He didn't miss much back home if he was being honest. His life there hadn't exactly been full of people. But every now and then the silence felt a little louder than usual.
He was halfway through his sandwich when he heard a sharp sound from the table next to his.
He looked up.
A girl had knocked her bag off the back of her chair. Everything had scattered — phone, keys, a small notebook, a pen, what looked like a press badge.
She was already crouching to gather it all, looking slightly flustered.
Nobody around her moved.
Aditya was already out of his chair before he thought about it. He picked up her phone and keys from near his feet and held them out as she stood.
"Thank you", she said, a little breathless.
"No problem", he said and sat back down.
He went back to his sandwich.
A few seconds passed.
"Is that sandwich actually good?", she asked, nodding toward his plate.
He looked up.
"Yeah honestly", he said. "I wasn't expecting much but it's pretty decent."
She smiled.
"I've walked past this place so many times", she said. "Never came in until today."
"Same", he said. Then after a second — "Well I've only been in this area a few weeks so I haven't walked past it that many times."
She laughed slightly at that. Easy and unforced.
"New to the city?"
"New to the country actually", he said.
Her eyebrows went up a little.
"Where from?"
"India", he said. "South India specifically. Karnataka. Which most people here don't know is basically a completely different world from North India but that's fine I've stopped explaining."
She laughed properly at that.
"Fair enough", she said. "I'm Lindy."
"Aditya", he said.
She repeated it carefully, getting it right on the first attempt.
"Is it okay if I just — " she gestured vaguely at the chair across from him.
"Yeah go ahead", he said.
She moved her bag over and sat down.
She was easy to talk to. That was the first thing he noticed. Not in a way that made him nervous — in a way that made it feel normal.
He felt comfortable. That itself was slightly unusual for him. Back home he wasn't exactly the kind of person who fell into easy conversations with people he had just met. With boys he could start a conversation without thinking too much about it — but with girls he never really initiated unless he got a clear sense that they were interested in talking first. He mostly kept to himself, said what he needed to say and left it at that.
But Lindy didn't make it feel like an effort. She just talked and he just responded and somehow that was enough.
Easy company. He hadn't had much of that in a while.
She asked him what he was doing in New York.
"Software", he said. "Working on something. Early stage."
"Like a startup?"
"Sort of", he said. "More like I'm figuring it out as I go."
"How's that going?"
"Better than expected", he said honestly.
She seemed to find that funny for some reason.
"I'm a journalist", she said. "Or I'm trying to be. Currently writing about local neighbourhood stuff. Not exactly what I imagined when I started."
"What did you imagine?"
"Something important", she said, a little self aware. "Something people actually cared about."
"People care about neighbourhood stuff", he said. "That's where they live."
She looked at him for a moment.
"That's actually a reasonable point", she said.
"I have them occasionally", he said.
She grinned at that.
They talked for a while. She told him about a story she was working on in Brooklyn. He listened and asked questions when he was actually curious rather than just to fill silence.
At some point she asked him if he missed home.
"The food mostly", he said without hesitating.
She laughed.
"What kind of food?"
"My mother's cooking specifically", he said. "Which is not a very interesting answer but it's the true one."
"That's a very honest answer actually", she said.
"Also just — having people around I suppose", he added. "Not anyone specific. Just the general background noise of it."
She nodded at that like she understood exactly what he meant.
"Have you made friends here yet?"
"Not really", he said. "I've been pretty focused. I know my gym trainer and my nutritionist."
She raised her eyebrows.
"That's it?"
"And you now I suppose", he said. "So three people. Progress."
She laughed again. He noticed she laughed easily which he appreciated. Some people treated every conversation like a test. She didn't.
After a while she looked at her watch and started gathering her things.
"I have to get back", she said standing up. "This was actually really nice."
"Yeah", he said. "Good accidental cafe discovery."
"Agreed." She picked up her bag properly this time, double checking it was secure on her shoulder. "Good luck with the startup thing."
"Good luck with the important story", he said.
She smiled at that — a proper one.
Then she was gone.
He finished his coffee and sat for a bit after she left.
He already knew who she was of course. He had known the moment she walked in. Lindy. In the movie her whole story got pulled into Eddie's orbit — his chaos, his spiral, none of it her choice.
He had no plans to do that to her.
But she was good company and he had enjoyed talking to her more than he had expected for a random Tuesday afternoon.
He paid, left a tip and walked out into the city.
On the way back he stopped at a small Indian grocery store he had spotted earlier in the week but hadn't gone into yet. He spent twenty minutes looking at everything on the shelves — MTR ready mixes, Maggi, a small shelf of pickles, packets of poha.
He bought more than he needed.
He walked home feeling considerably better than when he had left.
That evening he sat at his desk and wrote his usual end of day notes in his notebook.
App — one week from completion. Trades — steady. Gym — progressing. Diet — on track.
He paused.
Then added one more line.
Met someone interesting. Also found the Indian grocery store. Good day overall.
He closed the notebook.
Outside his window New York moved on as it always did.
Loud. Indifferent. Alive.
He didn't mind it as much today.