They laughed at how thoroughly his work face defeated emotional research.
Then they changed the subject deliberately. Naina’s apartment search. Meher’s job application. Rhea’s difficult senior. Tanya’s coordinator interview. Friendship recovery required constructing conversations not organised around the man.
The following weekend they volunteered at Eastbridge’s book donation drive because Tanya had promised Mrs Suri four competent adults.
“You described us as competent?” Rhea asked while carrying boxes.
“Institutional editing.”
Students sorted books. Parents donated unusable exam guides from 2014. Meher redesigned the signs. Naina tracked categories. Rhea argued with a donor who wanted a receipt for fictional value.
Watching her friends enter the school world felt different from inviting Kabir into it. They knew Miss Sachdeva and Tanya simultaneously. No version had to disappear.
Sunita brought lunch. She recognised the women’s strained politeness and supplied food without asking questions.
“Aunty knows?” Meher whispered.
“Enough,” Tanya said.
“My mother would have created a community alert.”
“Mine would ask for return on emotional investment,” Naina replied.
The day ended with sore backs and no romantic drama. It did more for the friendship than Operation Full Disclosure because ordinary cooperation proved they still functioned outside crisis.
That night, Tanya archived Kabir’s private chat. She did not delete it. Deletion felt like claiming the past had no value; leaving it visible felt like waiting.
Archive was neither forgiveness nor punishment.
Vikram delivered one more consequence quietly. He sent each woman a private folder containing only her Goa photographs and a note asking whether she wanted any deleted.
Tanya opened hers. There were images she had never seen: reading at Zoya’s café, arguing with a helmet strap, looking toward the sea, laughing beside Kabir. Vikram’s camera had recorded a person rather than a romance.
She kept all of them.
Meher requested colour corrections on three before recognising the absurdity and withdrawing the request. Rhea deleted one photograph of the ring Kabir gave her after the boat ride, then restored it from trash. Naina downloaded the picture in which she held everyone’s sandals.
“I look like staff,” she wrote in the group.
Tanya replied: You look like the person keeping our feet from burning.
Meher: Next trip we rotate labour.
Rhea: I volunteer Tanya for footwear ministry.
The photograph became proof that old roles could be seen and renegotiated rather than resented in silence.
Tanya moved Kabir’s chat into archive after viewing the album. She did not delete the messages, photographs or evidence of happiness.
Archive was neither forgiveness nor punishment.
It was storage.