I have always been embarrassingly committed to a good ending. So before I packed up eight years of my life in Delhi and moved to Bengaluru for a new job, I decided the only reasonable cure for my existential dread would be a trip to Udaipur with my boyfriend. While I forgot sunscreen, Neel* forgot that iMessages sync across Apple devices. As I baked my under-eye, one small notification caught my attention, and by the time he stepped out of the shower, I realised this trip would not be making it to Instagram.
“So,” I finally asked, “who is she?”
As I listened to the faint sound of my ex crying in the hotel lobby while I cancelled our candlelit lake view dinner reservation, I realised I still needed some irrefutable proof that my relationship was over. So I did what any sensible woman would do in this situation. I called Alex*. I told her that the man she was seeing had already been in a relationship for three years. I think she apologised. Here is what I knew about her: nothing. Here is what I had already decided about her: everything. I hated her.
I spoke to her for fifty minutes, clinging to the relief that there were no “I love yous.” A few dates. Drinks at Perch in Bandra. Long drives with Spotify playlists he stole from me. I asked again, quickly, “Really, nothing happened?”
“That’s not nothing,” she said immediately. “That’s still a lot.” She sounded angrier on my behalf than I had allowed myself to be.
From that moment, it became impossible to hate her properly. An unfortunate development, considering how badly I wanted to.
Maybe it starts when you’re nine. In your school corridor. A fallout happens between two girls in your group, and suddenly, everyone is required to pick a side. You learn, very young, that female relationships have a geometry to them: sides exist, and neutrality is its own kind of betrayal.
By adulthood, we inherit more cruel versions of the same binary. 27-year-old content creator Sukanya Chakrabarti says, “We’ve all picked allegiances at some point—like Serena and Blair, or Hailey and Selena. And for what? A custody battle for a manchild.” There is always a woman we are expected to root for and another we are expected to punish.
I didn’t care whom the blame fell on. I only wanted to isolate myself after the breakup. People attended the wake of my relationship, just to check the autopsy. An old friend resurfaced with a dramatic gasp: “Is it true what I heard?!” Someone I hadn’t spoken to in a year texted me: “So sorry to hear about you and Neel”—followed by “Also, saw an opening where you work, could you refer me?” Turns out, the five stages of grief now include referrals.
Alex’s first text was different. Just a “Hope you’re doing okay.” I replied, mostly to inflate my own sense of moral superiority. But her texts became more frequent than I expected. Every month or so, she checked in. I stayed curt. She remained annoyingly kind. The exchange was so undemanding, it felt suspicious. One day, I posted about looking for leads for an apartment in Bengaluru. Alex reappeared in my notifications to offer help. I wondered if she’d attained some final state of human evolution? Was this my penance? A litmus test to prove that I, too, was a girl’s girl? And how does one prove it while secretly believing that, despite her grace, she is wrong and I am right? So I decided to meet her.