Chapter Seven: The First Summer
(Zaria's pov)
Jet lag hit harder than homesickness.
For the first few days, we woke up at 3 a.m., blinking at the ceiling, unsure what time zone our hearts were in. The apartment smelled like cardboard and new beginnings — and I still hadn't figured out how to make the heater stop humming.
Lia tried to act like she had everything under control, but even she looked lost sometimes, scrolling through her phone like Google Maps could translate loneliness.
Maya and I slept with our doors open at night, the way we used to leave our windows open back home — like some invisible thread still connected us.
By the fourth day, Lia clapped her hands. "Enough crying. We're running out of snacks. We have to go outside."
Outside.
In America.
That word still felt unreal.
We changed into jeans and light sweaters — nothing fancy, but I kept adjusting mine like it didn't fit right on my skin. Back home, the air was thick with noise and warmth; here, it was thin, almost too quiet.
The walk to the grocery store was both ordinary and strange. Everything was big — the roads, the cars, the space between buildings. I missed bumping shoulders with people in crowded markets, the rhythm of bargaining, the sound of coins clinking in my mother's purse.
At the store, Maya gasped at the cereal aisle. "Why are there so many kinds of cornflakes?"
Lia laughed. "Because Americans love choices."
"Too many choices," I muttered, staring at the prices. "Look at this! One mango costs five dollars!"
Maya held it up dramatically. "A golden mango, apparently."
We ended up filling the cart with the weirdest combination of things — frozen samosas, ramen, peanut butter, and jasmine rice. When we reached the checkout, the cashier smiled politely and said, "How are you today?"
I froze for a second, not used to strangers asking that so casually. "Um… I'm good," I said. It sounded like a lie.
The rest of the day passed in a blur of unpacking groceries, trying to make cha with the wrong kind of milk, and getting lost in YouTube tutorials titled "How to survive your first month abroad."
By evening, the loneliness crept back in, gentle but persistent.
Maya curled up on the couch beside me. "Do you ever feel like… this isn't real?"
"All the time," I said.
We sat there in the golden light of sunset — the kind that made the apartment look warmer than it felt. I scrolled through old photos of home: my school uniform, the rooftop, the night before I left. I could almost smell the ilisher jhol Ma made on Fridays.
Lia came in with a steaming pot of noodles. "Dinner," she said proudly. "Not khichuri, but it'll do."
It wasn't about the food. It was the laughter that followed — the kind that started soft, then grew louder, filling the empty corners of our new home.
As days passed, we began to build a routine — clumsy but ours.
Morning walks to the nearby park, where Maya tried to feed birds that didn't care.
Afternoons spent calling family on video chat, their faces pixelated but familiar.
Evenings filled with songs — Bangla ones — echoing softly through the apartment.
Sometimes we'd dance to old movie soundtracks while cooking.
Sometimes we'd cry quietly when no one was looking.
We started keeping a little corner of the living room for "home." A folded nakshi kantha, a small bowl of sand from our garden back home, and a candle that smelled faintly of jasmine.
"See?" Lia said one night, smiling tiredly. "It's not just an apartment anymore."
One Friday evening, it rained. Not like Dhaka rain — wild and loud — but soft, polite, almost shy.
I opened the window, closed my eyes, and whispered,
"Smells different, but still rain."
Maya looked up from her sketchbook. "You miss it?"
"Every second," I admitted.
She smiled sadly. "Same."
We didn't need to say more.
Later that night, I lay in bed and listened to the rain tap against the glass. My fairy lights glowed dimly, the photo of Ma and Baba watching over me from the wall.
Somewhere deep inside, the ache of homesickness began to shift — not disappear, but change shape.
It was still there, but it no longer felt like drowning. More like carrying a piece of home wherever I went.
Maybe the world wasn't divided by oceans after all.
Maybe it was connected by memories.
And as I drifted to sleep, I realized:
The distance I had dared to cross was no longer just about leaving home.
It was about finding it again — in every new beginning.