I grew up sort of not really knowing my neighbours. I always moved houses and left home before I got to know their middle names or even the colour of their eyes. There was a little girl named Abby who I once invited to my birthday party when I was six. She is an engineering genius now, and a research fellow. There was a girl named Kinjal who had beautiful eyes, and her sister had the most beautiful smile.

I went to church school with a boy who went to middle school with a girl who was discovered by Jessie J and is now a nation’s superstar. My best friend in school has a sister who interned for Gucci, which isn’t that big of a deal, except that it’s GUCCI! And a girl who I went to school with was once the face of L’Oreal and Marc Jacobs. And she was only 22 then! But of course, I only knew them a decade before they became these huge people.

I moved cities and around the world way too much to have a good enough memory with any one of them. I did not spend enough time with them to change their lives, or have them change mine.

There was one person who I could not get over. I could sacrifice a thousand memories and a thousand friends just to feel his soft hands again. He is the one person who I wish I could have stayed for. His name was Apurva. He was a smart boy who wore these hipster glasses. He had worn a crisp white shirt on the day that our souls first met, and I wore the biggest smile.

I only know five things about him. They were more than enough for me to fall for him, but not enough to find him.

1. He was doing his MBA – this told me that he liked studying and I’ve always admired people who liked to learn.

2. He was smart – his glasses, the hipster ones, weren’t just for show. The boy could calculate square roots in his mind without a calculator.

3. He had a beautiful smile – his perfect set of teeth could make even the most depressed smile back. His smile was THAT beautiful. I could stare at it for days.

4. He noticed me – he noticed me when I worked until 8 PM that night. He said that he liked that I worked that hard too.

5. His hands – when we shook hands, sparks lit up and my entire world shone bright.

The last one was enough. I shook his hands and my world around me started shaping up. Has anyone ever caused your body to light up for sixty minutes with only a handshake? He was my home. He felt like home.

Now I’m here, four years later, with all these connections and people. I’ve met people all over the world who have changed my life. I myself am doing wonderful things and writing beautiful stories. But my home? My home had vanished.