The Stranger at My Wedding

“Hey… want to play with us?” Sritam had asked me when I was seven.

“Yes,” I had said. That single word shaped the next twenty-three years of my life.

From muddy playgrounds to sleepless hostel nights, from sharing cycles to sharing hunger, from fighting street thugs near the botany department to quietly holding each other’s shoulders in failure—our friendship was forged, not born. He was the one who stood between me and a group of seniors when they tried to corner me behind the labs. I was the one who handed him twenty thousand rupees for his sister’s marriage, even if it meant living a month on watery rice and salt. We were lower-middle-class boys, building castles of dreams on the cracked walls of rented rooms.

We didn’t judge. We didn’t complain. We only planned for a future where poverty would be a story we’d tell our children, not a noose around our necks.

But then, a year ago, Sritam disappeared. No calls. No chats. Nothing. He vanished into a silence that gnawed at me. At first, I thought it was a girlfriend. Or maybe the pressures of his job. But deep down, I knew it was something else.

And then, on my wedding day, he appeared.

The hall was full of relatives, colleagues, distant cousins—noise and light blending into chaos. Amid the swirl of faces, he entered quietly, like a shadow slipping through the cracks. No invitation. No message. No warning.

He didn’t smile. He didn’t congratulate me. He just stood at the edge of the crowd, watching. His eyes were darker than I remembered, carrying shadows that didn’t belong to the boy who once shared shirts with me.

When our eyes met, a storm of memories rushed back—the cycle rides, the tiffins, the cricket matches, the borrowed books, the fights, the hunger, the laughter. But behind it all, one question pounded in my head: Why did you leave?

Before I could move toward him, he turned away and slipped into the crowd, vanishing as suddenly as he had appeared. My wife later asked, “Who was that man?” I didn’t answer. Because I wasn’t sure myself anymore.

That night, long after the laughter had died and the guests had gone, a knock echoed on my door. Soft at first. Then harder.

Three knocks. Then silence.

I froze. My wife’s voice floated faintly from the bedroom, “Who is it?” I didn’t reply.

A whisper came, right at the door—“We’re here.”

My legs trembled. With shaking hands, I slid the latch. The door swung open. And there he stood.

Sritam.

His face was pale, his clothes soaked from the night rain. He pushed past me and locked the door, chest heaving.

“They’re here,” he hissed.

Before I could reply, the windows rattled. Shadows moved outside. A black SUV idled on the street, headlights dead but its engine humming.

“They won’t wait anymore,” he said, voice cracking. “They want to end it tonight.”

“Then why come here? Why bring them to my house, to my wife?” I snapped.

Tears welled in his eyes. “Because I couldn’t let you die without a chance. You’re my brother, damn it.”

But even as he spoke, I saw it—the guilt in his eyes, the kind that runs deeper than fear. He hadn’t just warned me. He had led them here.

The first stone shattered the window. Glass rained across the floor. My wife screamed from the bedroom.

Three men stormed in—faces covered, eyes cold. One carried a rod, another a gun.

“Which one?” the man with the gun barked.

And in that moment, I understood—they weren’t here for both of us. They were here for me.

Sritam lifted a trembling hand.

And pointed.

At me.

The world collapsed.

Everything slowed—the glint of the gun, my wife’s scream, his shaking hand, my own knife slick with sweat. Instinct took over.

I lunged. The blade sank deep—not into the intruders, but into him.

Sritam’s eyes widened, breath catching in his throat. He looked at me—no anger, no hatred—just sorrow. His lips quivered as if to speak, but blood filled his mouth before the words came. He crumpled in my arms.

The men froze, stunned. The one with the gun lowered it. Slowly, they backed out, silent as shadows, disappearing into the night.

No threats. No shots. No vengeance.

They had what they wanted. Not my life—
but his.

I sat there on the cold floor, cradling his body. My wife sobbed in the corner, too afraid to come closer. His last breath rattled out against my ear. And just before his eyes dimmed, he whispered:

“Forgive me… brother.”

Then silence.

The SUV drove away, its taillights vanishing into the horizon. Inside, the wedding flowers withered in the dark, the rituals of new life drowned in blood.

And in that suffocating silence, one truth cut deeper than any knife:

I hadn’t lost Sritam tonight.
I had lost him the night we buried that man in the woods.

The rest was just the world catching up.