Chapter 2: Shared Silenc*(New York, USA)*Morning arrived without ceremony, the kind that slipped into the city through narrow gaps between buildings, touching glass before skin. Suhani woke before her alarm, as she often did when her mind had not fully agreed to rest. The hotel room was quiet, disciplined, impersonal—everything a temporary space was meant to be. She stood by the window for a while, watching New York arrange itself into urgency.She did not think of Dhruv immediately.That, in itself, surprised her.Instead, she thought of the question he had asked the night before—*Long day?*—and the ease with which silence had