My best friend went to the restroom and asked me to handle my phone. Out of curiosity, I opened it and thought I wish I hadn’t entered the 6-digit password…
Aman and I have known each other since high school in New Delhi. We are of the opposite sex, but there has never been any ambiguity between us. Aman is kind and always behaves right. When I got married, she also helped take pictures and clear the party table, just like a thoughtful girlfriend. In the years that followed, Aman saw my happiness, then saw my marriage break up. He never prank at me, just quietly comforting me, occasionally reminding me to “take care of my health and mind.”

I was officially divorced some time ago. Two months have passed, and things still haven’t gotten better. My husband cheated on me, not once, but several times. And whenever I wanted to go to fight, Aman would stop me. Then I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I decided to set myself free.

My high school friends knew about this and often called me out for outings. That night, the entire group gathered to eat and drink at a tapri-style pavement restaurant near Connaught Place. Aman had drunk a little too much and got up to go to the bathroom and asked me to keep an eye on the phone as the restaurant on the pavement was not safe. It wasn’t the first time we were keeping track of each other’s things, but something suddenly prompted me to do this tonight. I wasn’t very curious, but when I picked up the phone, I didn’t understand why I typed in a six-digit number—my date of birth. Incredibly, the phone opened.

My heart was pounding… I scrolled through it and saw a closed photo album. I tried typing out the greeting messages I sent each other in high school—and the album opened.

There were hundreds of pictures of me from the twelfth grade till now. There were pictures of me giggling at my wedding, secretly wiping away tears at a class reunion, holding my child in my arms at a hospital in Gurugram, and even pictures taken from a distance while sitting alone in a café near Hauz Khas…

I was sitting there, in the middle of a crowded café, choking up. On the distant horizon, before my eyes—for so many years, the man I had been looking for was right here. A man who patiently stood away from all my troubles, never interrupted, just watched silently and helped.

When I got home that night, I couldn’t sleep. I felt so sorry, so guilty, and wondered why Aman had suppressed so many years of unspeakable feelings. If I hadn’t been in a hurry to get married that day, if I had looked into Aman’s eyes, maybe my life would have been different. But now, divorced, I was thinking… Did I really become emotional, or did the emptiness that had just been lost make my heart look for support?