Anika hadn’t spoken to Isha in seven months. Not for lack of trying. Just not enough trying.
It started slow. Rescheduled calls. The “let’s definitely catch up soon” messages that came with heart emojis and no actual dates. The growing silence between texts. Then, one day, they just… stopped happening.
It wasn’t a fight. Which almost would have been easier. It was distance disguised as busy.
They had been close once. Not the kind of close you post about. Not the curated selfies and brunch recaps. But the other kind—the real kind. The kind where you could ugly-cry over job rejections or parents who said the right thing in the most painful way. The kind where you lay next to each other in bed, no words, just breathing in the same shame after being ghosted by someone who had no right to leave.
Isha was the one who taught Anika how to thread her eyebrows in college, how to mix vodka with Limca and not die. How to dress “like you don’t care, but in a very specific way.”
Anika had been the one who stayed with Isha in the hospital after that abortion no one else knew about. Held her hand while she threw up. Took the call from her manager and said, “She’s sick, she’s not coming in.”
They were that kind of close.
And then life happened the way it always does. Isha got promoted. Anika moved cities. They both met people who made them feel exciting again. And slowly, the friendship that had once felt like home started to feel like an apartment you’d moved out of—familiar, but not yours anymore.
Now Anika was standing in a café in Delhi, one of those “urban nostalgia” places with recycled wood tables and overpriced ragi muffins, waiting for Isha. They’d finally scheduled a catch-up. She wasn’t even sure what she wanted out of it. Closure? Forgiveness? Just coffee?
Isha arrived five minutes late, still wearing her office lanyard like it was armor. She looked good. Tired, but good.
They hugged, awkwardly. The kind of hug you give someone who used to know your secrets but doesn’t know your current skin-care routine.
“So…” Isha said, sipping her cold brew, “how’s life?”
Anika paused. For a second, she considered saying the polite thing. Great. Busy. You know how it is.
But she didn’t. She said, “Honestly? I think I broke a piece of myself last year and I’m still figuring out how to put it back. I had surgery. I left Vihaan. I stood in rooms that didn’t want me there and spoke anyway. It’s been… heavy.”
Isha blinked. “Shit. I had no idea.”
“I know,” Anika said. “That’s kind of the point.”
There was a beat of silence. Then Isha reached across the table, fingers resting near the sugar sachets like she needed something to hold onto.
“I wasn’t there,” she said. “And I don’t have a good excuse.”
Anika shrugged. “Neither of us were.”
They let that truth sit between them. It didn’t ask to be solved. Just heard.
They talked for two hours. Not like before. But not like strangers either. Isha laughed at one of Anika’s snarky comments about startup culture. Anika teared up when Isha described the panic attacks she’d started having in April. They weren’t pretending anymore.
As they left, Isha hugged her tighter this time and said, “Call me. For real. Even if you have nothing new to say.”
Anika smiled. “Same.”
Walking home, Anika didn’t feel fixed. But she felt something loosen. Like a window had cracked open in a stuffy room. Like maybe friendships don’t end when you lose touch. Maybe they end when you stop believing they can find their shape again.
And maybe—if both people are willing—they get to become something new.
Leave a Reply