Truth be told, Anu was flabbergasted. But her quick reply to his question took her by surprise. ‘Without batting an eyelid,’ she had said and she had meant it. She used to get annoyed when Sameer went dating everyone on earth but had friendzoned her. But after she and Sanju became a couple, she was the one who had friendzoned Sameer. But, maybe, deep down somewhere, she still had a crush on him. Why would she agree so quickly otherwise? But Shwetha had begged to differ. According to her, Anu had agreed only because she liked staying well inside her comfort zone and Sameer spelt comfort with a capital ‘C’ for her. What is wrong with comfort zones anyway? Anu never understood.

However, a month later Sanju had met her. ‘Anu, I spoke to my mother. She is fine with us moving out.’ He was never one to confess love but Anu knew he had missed her. As much as she had missed him, at the very least. Or so she wanted to believe.

‘What brought about this change of heart?’ Anu had secretly fished for some confessions and he hadn’t disappointed her.

‘There is only one Anu in this world. I don’t want to lose her.’

That was when he had casually mentioned that he had dated Kshama for a couple of months. ‘There is no other woman like you, Anu. Crazy, mad, but also sane!’

‘I moped for you like Meerabai while you went around dating women!’ Anu was genuinely angry, more with herself than with Sanju.

‘We were on a break!’ Sanju had mouthed Ross’s famous line from Friends and then had said seriously, ‘Kshama and I were friends all through undergrad. Dating was nothing more than a continuation of the same friendship, okay? I am not a serial dater like Sameer.’

Anu had then made the mistake of telling him what Sameer had said. That had changed everything. Sanju, that instant, had turned hostile towards Anu and Sameer’s friendship. But what neither Sanju nor Sameer had told her (her mother-in-law had later) was that it was Sameer who had brokered peace between Sanju and her. He had spoken to her mother-in-law about this breakup who had then spoken to Sanju.

Anu had asked Sameer why he had done so, while he wanted a chance with her!

He had cracked some bad joke at first (something like when she had agreed, he had developed cold feet) but then had come clean with the truth. ‘I needed a chance with you only if all the doors between you and Sanju were closed. Evidently, no door was closed between you two! You are the creepy Romeo and Juliet of this century.’ He had ended with a bad joke.