Chap­ter XVII immers­es Addie in the vibrant pulse of New York City, where every cor­ner offers an adven­ture, and every street is a poten­tial dis­cov­ery. The city’s vast­ness is what draws her in, with its end­less oppor­tu­ni­ties to absorb dif­fer­ent cul­tures, foods, and experiences—each day bring­ing a new slice of life to savor. What cap­tures her most, though, is the city’s dynam­ic trans­for­ma­tion, always in motion, con­stant­ly reshuf­fling its scenery, and offer­ing up new nooks to explore. As the sun peeks through the clouds on this par­tic­u­lar March day, the air grows warmer, and New York, always full of sur­pris­es, presents a hid­den gem she hadn’t yet uncov­ered: “The Last Word,” a book­store tucked beneath a fad­ed pur­ple awning. For some­one as well-trav­eled as Addie, dis­cov­er­ing a place she hadn’t yet seen in the city is an exhil­a­rat­ing moment, a tes­ta­ment to New York’s cease­less abil­i­ty to offer some­thing new at every turn.

The inside of the book­store is a reflec­tion of the city itself—chaotic, eclec­tic, and brim­ming with life. Far from the metic­u­lous­ly orga­nized shelves of most stores, The Last Word feels like a labyrinth, with piles of books stacked hap­haz­ard­ly and nooks filled with for­got­ten vol­umes wait­ing to be dis­cov­ered. The air inside is thick with the scent of paper, ink, and the knowl­edge of gen­er­a­tions, and Addie finds her­self lost in it. It is here that she encoun­ters a mix of patrons, each of them reflect­ing a dif­fer­ent facet of the city’s diverse fabric—from the old­er man silent­ly flip­ping through pages to the fash­ion­able young woman absorbed in an art book. The book­store, almost like a liv­ing organ­ism, seems to breathe and shift, and in this space, Addie finds her­self momen­tar­i­ly shed­ding the weight of her immor­tal exis­tence, at least for the time being.

How­ev­er, her soli­tude is soon inter­rupt­ed by Hen­ry, a kind yet curi­ous fig­ure who approach­es her with an offer of assis­tance. Although his pres­ence is warm and invit­ing, Addie, cau­tious by nature, declines, pre­fer­ring to explore the shop on her own terms. As she con­tin­ues to roam the aisles, her atten­tion is drawn to a Greek edi­tion of The Odyssey—a book that res­onates with her deeply, invok­ing both nos­tal­gia and the weight of time. Her acci­den­tal encounter with Hen­ry, involv­ing the book and the mis­step of a brief mis­un­der­stand­ing, sparks an unex­pect­ed moment of con­nec­tion between them. Instead of accus­ing her of theft, Hen­ry sur­pris­es her by offer­ing her the book as a gift, an act of kind­ness that both aston­ish­es and intrigues Addie. The inter­rup­tion by the young woman, who sug­gests call­ing the police, adds an inter­est­ing lay­er of ten­sion to the inter­ac­tion, yet the over­all sense is one of curios­i­ty and won­der. Henry’s deci­sion to let Addie keep the book, despite the awk­ward cir­cum­stances, leaves her with a sense of grat­i­tude and an unre­solved curios­i­ty about the man she has just met. As she steps out of the book­store, the encounter lingers in her mind, and she finds her­self caught between the fleet­ing nature of the moment and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of some­thing more—something per­haps more per­ma­nent than her cursed exis­tence usu­al­ly allows.

This chap­ter encap­su­lates the beau­ty of chance encoun­ters, high­light­ing the way New York City acts as a stage for small, mean­ing­ful moments that add to the rich­ness of life. Each indi­vid­ual that cross­es Addie’s path becomes part of her ongo­ing sto­ry, a sto­ry she is unable to escape, even if she is des­tined to be for­got­ten by them. For Addie, the book­store, the unex­pect­ed gift, and the brief exchange with Hen­ry sym­bol­ize a moment of con­nec­tion that is rare for her. In a world where she is doomed to dis­ap­pear from people’s mem­o­ries the moment they part, moments like these remind her of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of con­nec­tion, even if only for a short time. These brief, fleet­ing inter­ac­tions add to the lay­ers of her immor­tal expe­ri­ence, each leav­ing a sub­tle imprint on her, even if the world will soon for­get her once again.