FRIENDSHIPS
YUVAAN
The call comes a little after eight, just as I'm signing the last file waiting on my desk.
I don't even have to look at the screen to know who's calling.
Samrat is one of the last people I know who still believes in phone calls instead of messages.
Everyone else sends a text first. He never has.
If he wants to speak to me, he simply calls, fully expecting me to answer.
I pick up on the first ring.
"You've started doing that thing again," he says instead of greeting me. "Answering before the second ring. Makes it sound like you sit there staring at your phone waiting for me."
I lean back in my chair, rubbing absently at the bridge of my nose after a day that has felt twice as long as it actually was.
"I was finishing paperwork," I reply. "The phone happened to be on the desk."
"Hm."
I hear the scrape of a chair on his end before the faint clink of glass against wood. I can picture him without trying—feet stretched out, tie already discarded somewhere, one hand wrapped around a drink while pretending he's relaxing even though he's probably still surrounded by files of his own.
Samrat became Maharaja of Bhairavgarh the same year I inherited Devgarh. We were twenty-five, entirely too young to carry kingdoms our fathers had spent decades building. We met in college because neither of us particularly liked people, and somehow that turned into ten years of friendship.
He's possibly the most emotionally unavailable man I've ever met. He's also one of the only people who's ever looked at me and seen the man before the title. "So," he says after a comfortable silence, "how's married life?"
"Fine."
He lets out a slow, exaggerated sigh. "'Fine,'" he repeats. "That's genuinely the best you can do?"
"It answers the question."
"No, it avoids the question." I can practically hear him rolling his eyes. "You disappeared into a marriage with the woman you've been quietly in love with since you were practically a child, and after three weeks your official update is . . . fine."
I smile despite myself. "What exactly would satisfy you?"
"The embarrassing details."
"Samrat."
"I'm serious."
"I know."
"Those are always the interesting ones." Before I can answer, his voice softens. "How is she?"
Not the marriage. Not the palace.
Her.
I take a moment before answering. "She's .
. . herself." The words don't feel complete enough.
I try again. "Or at least she's trying to be.
" I look out through the study window into the dark gardens below.
"She's changed." The admission comes quietly.
"Not in the ways people notice immediately.
If you met her today without knowing who she used to be, you'd think she was perfectly alright. "
"But?"
"There's caution in everything she does now.
" I pause. "She watches every room before she walks into it.
She apologises for things that don't require apologies.
She asks permission before touching things that belong to her.
" Even saying it aloud makes something twist inside me.
"And sometimes . . . " I continue slowly, " . . . she flinches."
The word hangs between us. "At what?"
"I don't know."
I think back to the bookshop. The customer. The panic that crossed her face before she'd managed to hide it.
"A stranger." Another pause. "A haircut." I close my eyes briefly. "There are pieces of her life I know nothing about."
Samrat doesn't interrupt. He never has. He lets silence do its work.
Finally he says, "You'll learn."
"I don't know how."
"You will." There's absolute certainty in his voice. "You've always been patient enough to outwait people."
A small laugh escapes me. "I think most people would call that stubborn."
"They'd be right."
He doesn't even hesitate. "I remember her, you know."
I look up. "You do?"
"Vaguely."
I hear him thinking. "Second year of college. You'd left your jacket at home." A memory surfaces. Anamika arriving at campus. Standing awkwardly outside my hostel room with my jacket folded over one arm.
"They sent her with it."
"I remember."
"She barely stayed ten minutes." He chuckles. "I also remember she wasn't impressed by either of us."
I laugh quietly. "No."
"Most girls were intimidated."
"She wasn't."
"Not even a little."
I can still picture it. She'd walked into my room, looked around at the mess with complete indifference, handed me the jacket, refused tea because she had to catch the afternoon bus, and left before any of my friends could properly introduce themselves.
At the time I'd been mildly embarrassed she'd seen my room looking like that. Looking back . . . She never cared about any of it.
"So . . . " Samrat says carefully.
"How's the little girl?" I don't even realise I'm smiling until I hear it in my own voice.
"Sara." I say her name naturally now. Like I've been saying it my whole life. There's a brief silence.
"You sound different."
"Different?"
"When you say her name."
I look down at the phone in my hand. "Do I?"
"You do." He doesn't elaborate. He doesn't need to. I already know he's right.
"She's five," I say, unable to stop myself from smiling wider. "Half the palace staff have surrendered to her already."
"I can believe that."
"She somehow convinced my mother to eat dessert before dinner yesterday because apparently rules don't apply during storytelling."
Samrat laughs. "And you allowed this?"
"I wasn't consulted."
"Were you overruled?"
"Immediately."
He coughs to cover up his laugh this time. "And you accepted defeat?"
"I recognised it."
"Hm."
He lets that settle. "What does she call you?"
"Mister."
"That's it?"
"For now."
I hear him catch the word instantly. "For now?"
I don't answer. I don't need to.
"You want that to change."
"Yes." The word comes out before I've thought about it. No hesitation. Just the truth.
"I do." Another silence. Comfortable. Unhurried.
"I'm glad." The simplicity of it catches me off guard. "I've known you for Ten years," Samrat continues. "I don't think I've heard you admit you wanted something more than a handful of times."
I lean back slowly. He's right. Most of my life has been built around obligations. Duty. Expectation. Need. Want rarely entered the conversation.
And yet . . . I want this.
Her. Both of them. Without apology. Without qualification.
"I think something happened to her." The words leave before I can stop them. Samrat grows quiet again.
"Tell me."
I stare at the bookshelf opposite my desk. "She gets frightened."
"How?"
"The kind of fear your body remembers before your mind does."
"I've seen people panic before. This wasn't panic. It was memory." I rub a hand over my jaw. "I don't know who hurt her."
"I don't know when."
"I don't know how much."
"I only know someone did."
"And I don't know how to ask without making her feel cornered."
For a long moment, neither of us speaks. When Samrat finally answers, his voice is steady. "Then don't ask."
I frown slightly. "What?"
"Not yet." He says it so matter-of-factly that I stop arguing before I begin. "You've never needed explanations before deciding someone deserved protection." I blink. "You did the same thing for me." His words pull me back years.
College.
Late-night drives.
Him refusing to go home for reasons he never explained until much later.
I never asked then either. I simply stayed.
"You waited until I was ready." He continues quietly.
"You never forced the truth out of me." I hadn't realised I'd done that.
"You just kept showing up." A small pause.
"Do that." I sit with those words. "They tell you eventually," he says.
"When they stop worrying you'll leave after hearing it.
" My chest feels strangely tight. "And don't let her catch you worrying. "
"Why?"
"Because people who carry shame mistake concern for pressure." I close my eyes briefly.
He isn't wrong. "If she thinks you're waiting for a confession, she'll retreat."
"I know women like that."
"So . . . "
He exhales softly. "You love her. Just do what your heart says, Yuv. For once, let yourself be happy.” The advice is painfully ordinary.
No dramatic speeches. No impossible wisdom. Just patience.
It's exactly why I've trusted him for ten years. "When are you coming back to Devgarh?" I ask, steering us away from a conversation that's become dangerously close to feelings.
He immediately catches the attempt. Thankfully, he lets me have it. "When you organise something worth travelling for."
"So never?"
"Probably."
He chuckles. "Though I hear a five-year-old has taken over your household."
"That rumor is accurate."
"I'd travel across three states just to watch her negotiate with you."
"You'd be disappointed."
"Why?"
"She'd win."
"Obviously she'd win." He laughs again. "You never stood a chance."
Probably not. "Take care of them," he says quietly.
"I will."
"I know." That's all he says. No lectures. No grand farewell. Just quiet certainty.
The call ends the way it always has. No proper goodbye.
Just silence. I lower the phone onto my desk and sit there for a while, listening to the palace settle into its nighttime quiet.
Friendships like ours are strange things.
We've never been the sort to say we care.
Never needed to. Ten years have taught us other languages.
Showing up. Telling uncomfortable truths. Sitting in silence without needing to fill it. Trusting the other man to carry what he's capable of carrying.
Whatever Anamika is still holding inside herself . . . I'll wait. As long as she needs.
I only hope, for her sake more than mine, that one day she decides she doesn't have to carry it alone anymore.