I had known Aamir for over ten years. We became best friends in school and even went to the same college. I knew he had developed feelings for me at some point, and so we tried dating 2 years ago. It stopped very soon when I realized he was texting another girl he liked, the same way he was talking to me. I was very hurt at that point, but after a year or so I forgave him for the sake of our long friendship and we remained friends. Despite being just friends, I knew that he still had feelings for me.
After my undergraduate, I went to the U.K. for my postgrad. Despite being far away from each other, Aamir and I would still talk for hours each day and I felt like he was with me, as a friend. As months went by I got know Raghav. Raghav was a guy very different from all the other Indian guys I knew there. He was much more sensitive, funny and at the same time mature. He enjoyed cooking, you could talk about your feelings with him, and even though he had been brought up in Europe, he was as Indian as can be. Raghav and I became really close in a matter of weeks. I had never been this close to any guy before, not even Aamir. We both lived in the University campus, so we would see each other almost every day. We had our fights too, but things were going generally well for us.
A few months after Raghav and I had been blissfully together, I got to know that Aamir was coming to the U.K. with his parents. He texted me saying that he would come to meet me on campus. It had been a while since Aamir and I had spoken to each other, so naturally I was very excited to see my best friend again and that too on campus! I had told Raghav all about my past with Aamir. I told him that Aamir was coming to see me and that I would like him to meet Aamir too. He took it normally enough, but when he asked whether I had told Aamir about me and him and I said no, he seemed to get uncomfortable. We actually hadn’t told any of our friends about us, I really didn’t want the news to spread and even reach some relatives or my family back home. Raghav understood that, but seemed very uncomfortable that Aamir did not know about us, given our past. Still he agreed.
When Aamir came to meet me on campus, I introduced him to some of my friends and Raghav too. Raghav again and again told me that he was insecure about Aamir and felt that he still had feelings for me. I didn’t pay much attention to this, and we all went back to my room to chill. I wanted to spend some time with Aamir alone, for old times’ sake, so I signalled for Raghav to leave us. Little did I know that leaving me and Aamir alone in my room had increased his insecurities. I had no wrong intentions, Aamir just had another drink with me and then left after some time for his hotel.
The next day, after Aamir went back, we were texting each other a lot…just like old times. At some point he wrote, ‘I love you.’ Out of excitement and because he had written this after such a long time, I replied with the same message, ‘I love you.’ It was meant in a absolutely friendly way.
Raghav came to my place that evening and seemed quite off, or just tired. I went to the kitchen and he stayed back in the room, where I had left my phone. We both had allowed each other to take each other’s phone whenever we wanted to and scroll through whatever we liked.
While I was in the kitchen, Raghav came after some time and said that he needed to leave. He sounded very firm, yet calm. I asked him why he suddenly had to leave and if he could at least stay for dinner, even tried to pull him back, but he just wanted to leave, as if it was some kind of emergency. I got worried and tried calling him many times, but he didn’t want to pick up or tell me what the issue was. Finally, after hours of trying, he picked up. With a voice that sounded like he had been crying, he said that he had read the ‘I love you’ on my phone. I panicked. I wasn’t angry at him for reading a conversation on my phone, we had explicitly told each other that we had nothing to hide, but I just didn’t know what to say. I had meant the ‘I love you’ in a totally friendly manner. Nothing had happened between me and Aamir. In a hurry and in bafflement, I told him, ‘You’re not my husband.’
What he told me next was something I denied at that point, but understood much later. He said that I had done to him what Aamir did to me a few years back: flirting with two guys at the same time or at least playing with their feelings. It wasn’t true, I had no bad intentions whatsoever. It took me a week to convince him that there was nothing between me and Aamir, but until then, seeing his face, not a bit angry, but rather heartbroken, made me wish I had understood his pain much, much sooner.
*Names changed to protect privacy
Images: Shutterstock
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