I never thought punching in my birthday would open someone else’s locker.
At the gym that day, muscle memory took over—0412, my birthdate—and the lock clicked open. But this wasn’t my locker. It was Naveen’s.
We’d been friends for years, workout partners, the kind of buddies who could sit in comfortable silence between sets. But seeing my birthday as his combination? That wasn’t normal.
Inside, next to his protein powder, I found a worn notebook. Flipping through, I expected workout logs. Instead, I found pages about me—my promotion date, even the week I’d cried over my breakup.
My hands shook. Was this obsession? Surveillance?
That night, I tested him. “Thinking of switching to CrossFit,” I lied. Three days later, our boss mentioned it casually—“Naveen said you’re leaving?”
Confronting him was harder than any deadlift.
“It’s not stalking,” he said, voice cracking. “After my divorce, I forgot everything. People’s birthdays. Important stuff. You… you were the one who kept me going when I hit rock bottom.”
He pulled out his phone, showing me a reminder: Call Mom—cancer checkup. Text Amir—job interview today.
“I track what matters,” he admitted. “Your birthday’s my code because that’s the day we met. The day I stopped feeling invisible.”
Two months later, when Naveen checked into a mental health facility, I was the first visitor. Now, we share a notebook—not of secrets, but of small victories.
Turns out, the scariest discoveries aren’t about others. They’re about how little we really see the people we love.
