When he was done with the assignment, Omkar got up from his place at the table in the great hall. He tried to make as little noise as possible collecting his things. Before driving home, he bought a burrito, which he ate in a solitary corner of the cafeteria, watching other students contemplate their purchases. Despite coming to America, Omkar’s family only ever made Indian food. He knew that his mother would have some waiting for him when he got home. It wasn’t that he didn’t like her cooking; he loved it. It was that eating American food sometimes made him feel less foreign. And today was one of those days where he wanted to feel less foreign. Despite having been in America for almost 12 years now, he hadn’t managed to lose his accent, and as a result, he felt like people couldn’t see him at all. All they saw was the stereotype of an Indian exchange student. Omkar hated that people couldn’t see through that stereotype almost as much as he hated how unfortunate it was that he fit that stereotype so closely.

And he wanted time to think. Omkar was haunted by his encounter with Aria. The day she’d come into the store, he had raced downstairs expecting to find one or two of his parents’ friends standing there, waiting to scold him for his poor service and irresponsibility. He had thought her to be the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He had found it hard to hide the shyness he felt in her presence with the usual “greet-the-customer routine” that his parents expected him to execute perfectly. He couldn’t get her out of his mind.

He’d allowed her to swim around in his head, letting the idea of her distract him from the boredom of the store. He extended the meeting in his own mind. He imagined her life in the suburbs of LA. He imagined her mom and dad and sister and brother. He imagined her at college and wondered what she was studying there. He had no idea how wrong about her he really was. But there was something about her loneliness that mirrored his loneliness and promised that they might find what they both lacked together.

He would most likely never see her again. But the fact she existed made him feel like maybe a woman existed out there in the world who could tame his loneliness. And he let the promise of it comfort him.