I met Smita during my college days. We were pursuing graduate degrees in different streams but were at the same university. We met in the girls hostel and became good friends in a short span of time. Soon, I found myself spending more time in her room than mine. After classes we would spend hours chatting and within a month we knew almost everything about each other.
A couple of her friends from high school had also joined the same college, so she used to tell me about them. She would, in particular, mention this guy named Abhishek often. They weren’t that close in high school but had started hanging out more in college. I believe the fact that they were not total strangers to each other, unlike the other students in their class, helped. I started having doubts whether she had feelings for him, so one day I just asked her. ‘Yes, I think I have a crush on him,’ she replied. But she wasn’t very sure. Apparently she had not been very fond of him during their school days.
Being her bestie, the responsibility of evaluating if the guy was good enough for Smita came to me. So one day I went to her college after class so that we could go back to the hostel together and she made sure she was with Abhishek. The guy was nice and funny and I actually sat with them for almost an hour. That night, Smita asked, ‘So, how did you like Abhi?’ like a million times. All she wanted was to talk about him. I could tell she was totally falling for him.
I started hanging out more with Smita, Abhi and their group.They would come to my college or I would go to theirs, and on weekends we would go for movies.
After a couple of months, Smita told me that she had a doubt that Abhi had a crush on someone. This wasn’t good news, and I could tell she was upset about this. I told her that we need to find out who the girl is, and in order to cheer her up I even added, ‘It might be you, who knows!’ This did lift her spirits a bit.
One evening, I was reading in my room and there was a knock on my door. It was Smita, and the moment I opened the door she said, with a sad expression on her face, ‘It’s you.’ I didn’t understand what she was talking about, and when she saw that confused look on my face she said, ‘The girl Abhi has a crush on is you, he told me today.’ It took me a few seconds to digest this and then I felt like laughing but I didn’t because Smita really looked heartbroken. I just hugged her.
The good thing was this didn’t bring any awkwardness between Smita and me. We were still the same with each other but Smita was having a horrible time as Abhi kept talking to her about me. Of course, he had no idea that Smita had told me about it and in fact every evening she would tell me the things he would say about me. We actually started finding the whole situation funny.
One day, Abhi told Smita that he had no intention of telling me about his feelings; I was four years older to him and he felt that things wouldn’t work out. ‘But I don’t like him that way and even if we were of the same age, I would never date him,’ I told Smita. But all this time her feelings towards the guy didn’t change.
I felt that Abhi should know how Smita felt about him. I told her that I was going to tell Abhi everything – the whole situation was getting too complicated. So one evening, I called him up and told him that Smita had a huge crush on him. Though I told him that Smita didn’t know I was talking to him, she was actually sitting right next to me. He was a little surprised to hear this.
Within months, Smita and Abhi started dating and it’s been five years since they’ve been in a steady relationship.
I always tell them that when we grow old, I will be narrating this story to their grandchildren.
*Names changed to protect privacy
Images: Shutterstock
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