Let me tell you about the great purge of my friend circle, which happened around the same time my heart was being used as a punching bag by a man who once made me sit in his house for two hours without offering me so much as water.
First casualty was Rhea. We went on a trip together, and somewhere in the middle of that trip I came back with the horrifying discovery that Rhea apparently saw me as some kind of unpaid assistant, a girl with no other friends who existed purely to do her assignments. Which is rich, considering she moved to this city from a village while I'd lived here my whole life, so I genuinely do not know what made her think she is above me in any way. You have to achieve a very specific, very impressive level of delusion to pull that off, and somehow she managed it without even trying.
So when she texted me out of nowhere asking for a favor, in a tone that suggested I owed her something, I did what any reasonable, totally-not-petty person would do. I never spoke to her again. Did I cry about it later that night like a heroine who just got dumped? Yes. Was it worth it? Also yes. I contain multitudes.
Then there's Aaliya, who I didn't tell about Ryan at all. Not one word. Meanwhile half my college, including people who weren't even close to me, somehow knew the whole saga, which still baffles me when I think about it. Why the silence with Aaliya specifically? Because Aaliya has a very specific talent, doing absolutely whatever she wants with zero consequences, and then turning into a judge the second I do something wrong. I get humiliated by a guy I genuinely thought was below me, and suddenly she's going to have opinions about my choices? No thank you. I'd rather suffer in silence than hand her that kind of ammunition.
I actually trusted Ananya, but she had a boyfriend, and there's something uncomfortable about venting your disasters to a girl whose boyfriend is going to hear an edited version of it eventually.
My school friends were more acquaintance than friend at that point, Vridhi included. We went out once, just the two of us, and it was fine, genuinely fine, until I checked Instagram afterward and saw Ryan's story. A trip. With his girlfriend. The same person who treated hospitality like a foreign concept when I was the one sitting in his house.
That story wrecked me in a way because it confirmed a theory I did not want confirmed, that some girls just get guys to do everything for them, and meanwhile I'm out here getting ghosted by a man who made me feel like a burden all the damn time. He wouldn't even click pictures with me. Never introduced me to his friends. Why does it work for the new girl and not for me? I would like a refund on this entire experience.
Months later, at convocation, Ryan didn't show up, which honestly tracked, because the universe enjoys torturing me at scheduled intervals just to keep things interesting. The only person from his friend group I knew was Rahul, his roommate, someone I used to actually admire. He'd moved here from a village and was somehow surviving in the city just fine, treating his girlfriend well, the whole functioning-adult package nobody else around Ryan seemed to have.
So I did the bold, dignified thing of sending him a follow request to ask why Ryan skipped convocation. He didn't accept it. He sent me one instead. I, in a move that will haunt me forever, accidentally accepted his and then realized mine was still sitting there, ignored, just sitting in his requests like a small humiliation waiting to be noticed.
I made an executive decision on the spot, absolutely not, never speaking to this man, his whole friend group is clearly weird. Turns out, plot twist, Rahul had decided I was the problem, convinced I was interested in him and wanted something from him. And instead of just blocking me like a normal person, he apparently went and told my ex his own version of events.
Which we will get into next.