It wasn’t raining inside.
Some friendships start in chaos,
like 11th-12th grade coaching, where sleep was a myth
and stress was the third friend in the room.
Shruti, you and I stuck like Fevicol back then,
laughing, venting, trying to make sense of derivatives and the universe.
Then undergrad came, and with it, silence.
Life got loud in other ways.
A trip. A few texts.
Eventually, we became birthday friends ,
the kind who smile at a name on their phone once a year,
and mean it, even if it’s brief.
Dhruvi, we started on the sidelines, just classmates.
But when I moved away from Ahmedabad, something shifted.
Suddenly, we were going on drives through quiet nights
with Sicko Mode blasting in the car,
coffee runs that ran a little long,
spicy noodles and pink sauce pasta at cafés
that forgot our names but remembered our orders.
You felt like home without trying.
Then came America,
me in rainy Seattle, Shruti in Atlanta, Dhruvi in Boston.
Scattered again.
But Shruti, you called.
You visited.
We walked through Golden Gardens park in the freezing cold
like no time had passed,
and maybe it hadn’t, not really.
That visit stitched something back together.
And then, somehow, you both found your way to Seattle too.
And I? I graduated straight into the void.
No job. No plan. Just vibes (and not the good kind).
But you two, absolute clowns that you are,
somehow became my safety net.
I didn’t worry about rent. Or food. Or even pretending to be okay.
You didn’t just open your homes.
You opened your hearts.
You let me sit in the storm
without asking me to act like it wasn’t raining.
You gave me space to fall apart, gently.
And in that space, something grew.
A paper. An idea.
HALoGEN, born from frustration, too much coffee,
and emotional support disguised as sarcasm.
And it worked.
Best Paper at TrustNLP. Accepted at ACL.
And then Outstanding Paper at ACL.
Because you two were around
to roast me, feed me,
and occasionally remind me I’m not completely useless.
That paper carries more than citations.
It carries you.
Your kindness. Your belief.
The way you held me up without ever making it feel like a favor.
Thank you for being the kind of friends
who show up, stick around,
and make fun of you while doing it.
You made the mess survivable,
and honestly, kind of hilarious.
Gratefully (but still judging you),
Shrusti
