In the Nest

1.

Lily Matthews liked to come home from school every day, where she witnessed the workings of an average teenager's brain, to watch the streets from the windowsill of her parents' apartment. There, she could witness the workings of an average New Yorker's brain, but she didn't have to hear what they said about anyone. Because that dampened her optimism, and without it, Lily couldn't evaluate things properly.

It was a cold November day this time, and the clouds were covering the sky. Any tourist would have felt a bit underwhelmed because, if you weren't used to it, New York could look a bit gloomy on darker days. Lily cocked her head, then pulled a small notebook out of her coat pocket. Opening it, she flipped past the worn, note-filled pages that she and her mom had thumbed through so many times, turning to the first blank page. Random thought of the day: If you aren't used to dark days, they might look gloomy until you find the light.

In the streets below Lily's window, businessmen, students, artists, tourists, and all the people Lily couldn't categorize walked to and fro, all but oblivious to the people around them. The woman handing out flyers in front of McDonald's went unnoticed. Hardly anyone stopped to help the homeless man on the corner. They all had their own worlds and their own problems to attend to, and they didn't have time to meddle in anyone else's. Lily understood. Life was a strange, complicated thing, and building another, simpler reality was easier than dealing with the whole mass of it.

The tourists usually interested Lily the most. While natives moved about with the streets they traveled memorized and placed in their very back thoughts, tourists looked about with wonder, pointing here and there and watching how the people acted around them.

Lily's attention ended up landing on a dark-haired young man with a notebook and pen in his hands. He stood leaning against the brick wall of one of the buildings that lined the streets, staring at the sidewalk beneath his feet. Every now and then people would pass by, talking among themselves, and he would still almost to the point of being a statue, concentrating.

Lily had learned to recognize many of the different ethnic groups she saw every day, identifying the difference between the features and styles of the British and French, German and Norwegian, Japanese and Korean. The man against the building scribbled something down as this Russian (maybe Ukrainian) group passed, pausing for a moment to tap his head thoughtfully with the back of his pen before lowering it to the paper again. He was a linguist, Lily realized. Not a professional who worked for newspapers or survey companies, but more of a hobbyist. Maybe a college student, majoring in one thing but still keeping up with another. Lily decided she liked him.

She saw one of the girls from her school-Olivia-walking down the sidewalk on the street that ran past Lily's apartment building. Olivia was looking at her phone, scrolling through some sort of social media outlet. She laughed to herself about something she saw.

Lily sat up quickly when she saw that Olivia was about to cross at an intersection that still had traffic flying through it. Lily called out to her classmate, tapping on the glass helplessly.

Olivia's expression changed from a smile to a slack look of surprise as a businessman waiting to cross glanced over from where he was talking on his phone and quickly stuck his arm out block her. Lily exhaled in relief. Olivia, suddenly realizing what had almost happened, turned to the man with a look of terror on her face. Lily was surprised when the man spoke briefly into his phone and then lowered it to his side.

The man put his hand on Olivia's shoulder, leaning around to look her in the face. He was talking to her, his expression of concern making it instantly clear that he had at least one daughter of his own that he cared very much about. Lily watched as he reached down and pressed the power button on Olivia's phone, turning it face down in her hands as the screen turned off. He continued to speak to her; Lily could almost hear him imploring Olivia to wait until she got home to look at her phone.