I think I will always remember that morning. December 11th, 2013. We were out on the streets, the two of us. Sitting on the pavement with the pigeons, cigarettes and chai in hand, was our daily breakfast ritual. I don't think I can ever properly describe what it felt like when we found out about the Supreme Court judgement on Section 377, but the memory of it is left intact. "Fuck!", G exclaimed, and handed me her phone. I stared down at the screen, the headline from the news piece staring back at me, unflinching. "Fuck", is all I managed to say.

As we sat there, with our worlds crashing down around us, I wanted to hold her hand. I couldn't bring myself to.

She was livid. And I just sat there. The full import of the situation slowly filling my insides. I could feel my chest closing up. I didn't know if we could even hold hands anymore.

So we didn't. We quietly walked back to our shady, cool room in the PG, like good little girls. We didn't speak for a long time. And the first time we held each other's gaze, all I could bring myself to say was, "What now?"

I had a boyfriend when I first moved to Delhi. My sweetheart from school days, he was my parents' favourite.

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Three months in the city, an air conditioned room aglow with fairy lights, and one drunken make-out session with the most-beautiful-girl-I-had-ever-laid-my-eyes-on later, I realized I might be gay.

G and I were deep, deep in love. I broke up with my boyfriend from school, my best friend, who threatened to out me to my parents. Revenge for heartbreak, he said. "How could you just leave me for a girl?" he said. More than his heart, it was the male ego he had camouflaged so craftily for the three years we were together, that had suffered more damage.

G and I spent every waking moment of every day together. In the PG we were the two weird girls, joined at the hips, and who slept in single beds joined together. Laying in the grass watching clouds, playing with the street dogs, finishing each other's assignments, singing songs together, making love, G had made me whole. I was happier and more fulfilled than I had ever been.

During vacations, we'd spend hours on the phone. One week would be dedicated to a trip to the hills to see her. She had come out to her parents; mine had no idea. To my family, she was my best friend.

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