Chap­ter XIV paints a vivid pic­ture of Hen­ry Strauss as he walks alone through the dim­ly lit streets of New York City on the evening of March 13, 2014. The city, usu­al­ly alive with sound and move­ment, feels silent and dis­tant, with only the echo of his foot­steps accom­pa­ny­ing him in the dark. Wrapped in the cool, crisp air of the night, Hen­ry finds him­self lost in thought, his mind con­sumed by a sin­gle name—Addie. The name echoes through his mind like a melody, grow­ing loud­er and more sig­nif­i­cant with each pass­ing moment. It brings a cer­tain warmth that con­trasts with the cold of the night around him, and despite the emo­tion­al soli­tude he feels, the mere thought of her fills him with a qui­et sense of peace. Her image, the way she had looked at him with an open and unpre­ten­tious gaze, strikes him deeply, and he won­ders what it was about her that lin­gered in his heart so per­sis­tent­ly. As he walks, he begins to real­ize that his brief encounter with her was more impact­ful than he could have ever antic­i­pat­ed. It wasn’t just the fleet­ing con­nec­tion they shared; it was the feel­ing of being tru­ly seen, an expe­ri­ence so rare in the city that it almost felt like a gift, and now, that mem­o­ry occu­pies a spe­cial place in his heart.

Though the evening air remains chilly, Hen­ry feels a smile creep­ing onto his face, a smile born not from exter­nal warmth but from the inter­nal com­fort brought on by the mem­o­ry of Addie. The wind bites at him, but instead of retreat­ing from the cold, he embraces it, allow­ing the wind to become a reminder of the tran­sient nature of their moments togeth­er. The wind push­es against him, and he tight­ens his coat around him­self, his mind still on Addie and the brief yet pro­found time they spent togeth­er. Look­ing up at the sky, he notices how emp­ty it seems, lack­ing the stars that usu­al­ly fill the night with their glow. But even in the absence of those twin­kling lights, he feels no sense of despair; instead, there is a strange com­fort in the expanse above him, an over­whelm­ing sense of calm. The absence of the stars doesn’t dimin­ish the beau­ty of the night; rather, it ampli­fies it, fill­ing him with an inex­plic­a­ble peace. He reflects on how life, in its sim­plest moments, holds such beau­ty, a beau­ty that he found in Addie. She had man­aged to offer him some­thing intangible—something he didn’t know he was search­ing for—comfort in a fleet­ing con­nec­tion, and now, that mem­o­ry warmed him against the cold night air.

As Hen­ry walks through the city, his thoughts of Addie con­tin­ue to occu­py the fore­front of his mind. The sim­plic­i­ty of the moment, walk­ing alone in the city, serves as a back­drop for his inter­nal mus­ings, where the qui­et of the city and the still­ness of the night become a space for reflec­tion. The absence of noise, the cold­ness of the night, and the empti­ness of the sky only enhance his emo­tion­al jour­ney. He begins to real­ize just how much that brief moment with Addie impact­ed him, how the sim­ple con­nec­tion they shared held more depth than many of his oth­er, longer inter­ac­tions. The city may be dark and qui­et, but in that still­ness, he feels more alive than ever. The pow­er­ful effect Addie had on him, despite the brevi­ty of their encounter, now becomes clear as he walks alone. He finds him­self ques­tion­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of their meet­ing, con­tem­plat­ing what it meant to be seen so clear­ly by some­one, even for just a short time. It’s these moments of clar­i­ty, born from unex­pect­ed con­nec­tions, that Hen­ry begins to under­stand are the true touch­stones of life. The real­iza­tion that Addie, with her sin­cer­i­ty and open­ness, could make such an impres­sion on him is a turn­ing point. Through this soli­tary walk, Hen­ry is grap­pling with the grow­ing real­iza­tion that this brief con­nec­tion may have been one of the most mean­ing­ful moments of his life, and it’s that thought that pro­pels him through the dark streets, his heart lighter, even though the city around him remains unchanged.