Meera had prepared herself for many things during the film's production.
The script rewrites. The emotional breakdowns. The scent of hospital beds recreated with haunting accuracy.
But she hadn't prepared for this.
The moment an actress walked onto set wearing her life.
Her name was Aanya Roy.
Thirty-two years old. Theater-trained. Quiet, observant, with the kind of presence that made people lean in when she spoke.
Melissa had insisted she was perfect.
"She doesn't act emotions," Melissa had said. "She feels them. We don't need someone to play Meera. We need someone to understand her."
And she did. Almost too well.
On her first day of shooting, Aanya stood in front of the mirror in Meera's recreated flat, tying her hair the way Meera used to in 2019—messy bun, two strands loose near the temples.
Watching her from behind the monitor, Meera felt like she was staring through a window into the past.
Except the reflection moved on its own.
Aanya approached Meera between takes that afternoon.
"I hope this isn't weird for you," she said softly. "I've been studying your interviews, your photos… I've read your book three times."
Meera smiled, tight-lipped. "It's not weird. It's just… like watching someone dream about a version of me that died a long time ago."
Aanya nodded. "I don't want to perform you. I want to protect you."
That line cracked something open.
Protect me.
It had been so long since someone said that.
The scene they were shooting that day was from six months before Aarav's death—an intense fight in the kitchen, where Meera had accused him of giving up.
In real life, she had screamed so loud that the neighbor banged on the wall.
In the script, she'd softened the language a bit.
But as they filmed, Aanya surprised everyone.
She threw the pan across the kitchen just like Meera once had, voice shaking with rage:
"You're not tired—you're terrified! You say you're sparing me, Aarav, but all you're doing is leaving before you have to watch me break!"
The silence afterward was suffocating.
Even Arjun—playing Aarav—looked stunned.
The director turned to Meera. "That wasn't in the script."
Meera's voice was a whisper. "It was in my diary."
Aanya looked at her. "I read it. In the appendix. Page 304."
Meera's knees weakened.
That entry was from one of the worst nights of her life. She had never spoken those words aloud.
"I didn't think anyone would read that far," she murmured.
"I did," Aanya said. "Because you did."
Later that night, Meera sat with Samar on the rooftop of the production house, under the warm amber glow of fairy lights the crew had hung up for an after-wrap party.
"Is it possible," she asked quietly, "to mourn yourself while still being alive?"
Samar took a sip of his beer. "Only if you're brave enough to know you've changed."
"I watched her today," Meera said. "Watched her scream like I did. Cry like I did. She even breathes like I used to when I was scared. It's not me anymore. But it was. And I didn't realize how much I buried."
Samar nodded. "Grief has many graves. Some are for others. Some are for who we used to be."
The next day brought a scene Meera had avoided thinking about: the night Aarav was hospitalized for the last time.
In real life, she had fallen apart in the corridor. She remembered clawing at her own chest, whispering, "Take me instead."
The scene had been rewritten gently. A quiet sob. A collapse into a chair.
But Aanya—again—took it further.
As the nurse closed the door behind Aarav, Aanya began pacing. Her hands trembled. She whispered things under her breath no one else could hear.
And then, suddenly, she dropped to her knees, sobbing into the sterile hospital floor.
Meera felt her body seize.
Because Aanya had mimicked the exact motion Meera made that night. The way her hands hit the floor. The way she leaned forward, forehead pressed to tile. The way her cries were wordless and primal.
She hadn't written that. She hadn't said it in interviews. She had never even told Samar.
After the take, Meera pulled Aanya aside.
"Who told you how I broke down?" she asked.
Aanya looked confused. "No one. I just… felt it. It was like the room told me what happened."
And maybe that was true.
Maybe some emotions stained the walls so deeply they never left.
On the third week of filming, Meera brought Aanya to her real flat.
The one where it all happened.
It was emptier now. She had moved out, turned it into a writing studio.
But the scars remained.
"This is where I told him I loved him the first time," Meera said, pointing to the balcony. "And there—by the sink—he told me he was stopping treatment."
Aanya didn't speak. She just listened, hand grazing the walls as if touching invisible memory.
Before they left, Aanya turned to her.
"Do you ever wish you had ended the story differently?"
Meera hesitated.
"No. Because it didn't end. Not really."
She looked out the window.
"It just… became someone else's beginning."
That night, Meera couldn't sleep.
She stood in front of the mirror and looked at herself—then at the photos pinned to the board above her desk.
Aarav smiling in the hospital bed. Her, holding his hand. Letters. Polaroids. Post-its that said "Don't forget to smile today."
She realized something important.
Aanya wasn't replacing her.
She was reflecting her.
A version of her that needed to be seen. Not hidden. Not rewritten.
Just witnessed.
When filming resumed, Meera stood beside the camera with her shoulders straighter.
She wasn't mourning herself anymore.
She was reclaiming herself.
Scene by scene.
Memory by memory.
Until the story wasn't just about losing Aarav— But about finding herself again through the fire.
To be continued…