I WISH WE WERE JUST FRIENDS
Page 09
It was an ordinary day at school.
I was sitting in my classroom with my friends, enjoying the recess period. Outside the classroom, Kritika and Shalini were together, probably talking about something as usual. Everything felt normal, just another day in the life we had all grown accustomed to.
Until Shalini suddenly walked into the classroom.
She came straight to my seat and stood in front of me. Kritika was walking behind her.
And then, out of nowhere, Shalini asked me a question.
“If I had met you before Kritika and asked you for a relationship, would you say yes or no?”
For a moment, I was shocked.
Not because I had never thought about the possibility of Shalini having feelings for me. Somewhere, deep down, I had sensed it. The way she cared for me, the comfort we shared, and the way we could talk about almost anything had made me wonder whether our friendship meant something more to her.
What surprised me was that she had actually asked me.
Shalini was a shy girl. She was calm, polite, and reserved, much like me. She wasn’t someone I expected to confront me with such a direct question, especially when Kritika was right behind her.
I paused for a second.
And then I said, “No.”
Just like that.
I didn’t explain myself. I didn’t ask her why she wanted to know. I simply said no.
But even as the word left my mouth, I wasn’t sure it was the answer I would have given under different circumstances.
I liked Shalini. I genuinely enjoyed her company. Our friendship had a kind of ease that I didn’t always experience with Kritika. With Shalini, I could talk freely, behave naturally, and be myself without worrying too much about how I looked or what she might think of me.
With Kritika, things were different. I loved her, and that was precisely why I was so conscious around her. I wanted to impress her. I wanted her to see the best version of me. Even the simplest conversations could make me nervous.
With Shalini, I didn’t have to try so hard.
Perhaps that was why her question left me so confused.
If I had met her before Kritika, would I have said yes?
Honestly, I don’t know.
Maybe I would have. Maybe the bond we shared could have grown into something else if our lives had unfolded differently.
But that wasn’t the situation I was in.
Kritika was already part of my life. She was the girl I had confessed my feelings to, the girl who had said yes, and the girl I had begun imagining my days around.
And Kritika was standing right behind Shalini.
I couldn’t ignore that fact.
Somewhere in my mind, I wondered whether she could hear us. I imagined what she might think if she heard me say yes to her best friend. I didn’t want to create a situation that could hurt Kritika or complicate what we had.
So I said no.
Perhaps I was protecting my relationship. Perhaps I was afraid of what might happen if I gave a different answer. Or perhaps I simply didn’t know how to respond to a question that asked me to imagine a life I had never lived.
Shalini stepped back after hearing my answer.
Kritika came over and asked what had happened.
Neither Shalini nor I said anything.
I don’t remember whether Kritika had heard the conversation or whether she was genuinely unaware of what had just happened. She didn’t ask again, and we didn’t explain. She continued talking with us as she usually did until the recess period ended and she returned to her classroom.
On the surface, nothing had happened.
But something had changed.
Shalini wasn’t happy with my answer. She didn’t show it openly, and she didn’t argue with me. She simply moved on as though my response hadn’t affected her.
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That almost made it harder to understand what she was feeling.
I had expected her to say something, perhaps laugh it off or explain why she had asked me such a strange question. Instead, she left me alone with my own thoughts.
And for the rest of the day, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
For the first time since Kritika had entered my life, I found myself thinking about Shalini more than Kritika.
That realization confused me.
I wasn’t suddenly in love with Shalini. At least, I didn’t think I was. I loved Kritika, and I wasn’t ready to question that. But Shalini had been an important part of my life, too. She cared about me, listened to me, and understood me in ways I hadn’t fully appreciated until that moment.
She had been my friend, my companion, and someone I could talk to without feeling the pressure I felt around Kritika.
And now I wondered whether I had lost something by saying no.
I kept returning to the same question.
What if Kritika had never been there?
Would I have given Shalini a chance?
I couldn’t answer that without imagining a completely different version of my life. One in which I had never confessed to Kritika, never ridden on the back of her scooter, and never experienced the happiness of being loved by her.
But that wasn’t my life.
Kritika was the girl I loved. Shalini was the girl with whom I shared a different kind of connection. I couldn’t explain that difference properly at the time, but I could feel it.
With Kritika, I was always conscious of my feelings. I wanted to say the right things, make her happy, and become someone she could be proud of.
With Shalini, I could simply exist.
Our friendship felt genuine and effortless. I didn’t have to think so much before speaking. I didn’t have to worry about impressing her. We could talk, laugh, and spend time together without making every moment feel significant.
Perhaps I had taken that comfort for granted.
I had never seriously considered what Shalini might feel for me because I was too busy thinking about Kritika. I had never asked myself whether our friendship could have become something more. And when Shalini finally gave me the chance to consider it, I rejected the possibility before I had even understood the question.
Maybe that was the real reason I couldn’t forget it.
I wasn’t necessarily regretting my answer. I was wondering what it meant.
After that day, something changed between Shalini and me.
We didn’t have a fight. She didn’t stop speaking to me overnight, and there wasn’t any dramatic moment in which we decided to end our friendship.
The change was quieter than that.
The conversations became different. The ease we had shared began to disappear. We were still in the same circle, still connected through Kritika and our friends, but the old comfort wasn’t quite there anymore.
Perhaps she had finally said what she had been holding inside and couldn’t return to being the same friend afterward. Perhaps my answer had hurt her more than she wanted me to know.
I never asked.
And she never brought it up again.
That might have been the first and last time Shalini spoke to me so directly about her feelings. What had once been a natural friendship slowly became something more distant, even though neither of us openly acknowledged it.
Meanwhile, another friendship was growing around us.
My friend Harsh had started getting closer to Shalini, too. He often teased her, and their bond was beginning to resemble the one Kritika and I shared.
He would sometimes ask Shalini to help him with his work, give her his notebooks, and rely on her to complete homework or other tasks. They had their own rhythm, their own jokes, and their own little reasons to spend time together.
Watching them, I could see how easily a friendship could grow into something special.
I didn’t know what would happen between Harsh and Shalini. I didn’t know whether their connection would remain a friendship or become something more.
I only knew that relationships between people were becoming more complicated than I had once imagined.
We had started as four people sharing classrooms, notebooks, jokes, and ordinary school days. Now, beneath those ordinary moments, there were feelings that weren’t always spoken, questions that didn’t always receive honest answers, and possibilities that could change everything.
And just when I thought the confusion surrounding Shalini would settle down, another conflict began.
This time, it happened at the coaching institute.
And it was Kritika and me who found ourselves on opposite sides again.
