Vani didn’t mean to get tangled up in your chaos.

When they assigned her—fresh-faced, barely two years into the industry—to write lyrics for you, the industry’s most infamous rockstar, Vani told herself it was just work. Write, submit, get paid, leave.

But you weren’t just chaos. You were the storm and the eye of it.

From the moment she walked into your dimly lit studio—your hair messy, leather jacket tossed on the couch, cigarette smoke curling lazily into the air—she knew you were trouble. And yet, trouble had a way of pulling her in.

Vani told herself the late-night brainstorming sessions meant nothing. The stolen glances over scribbled notebooks were just… artistic synergy. The way your fingers lingered over hers when passing a pen was coincidence.

Until they weren’t.

Until those glances turned into kisses. Until her name was on your lips like a prayer. Until she started waking up in your bed with your guitar leaning against the wall, her lyrics sprawled across the sheets.

Everything was perfect.

It was around then that the forgetting began. Small at first. A misplaced notebook. A lyric she couldn’t remember writing.

But the laughs stopped when she couldn’t remember the chords to a song you had just written the day before. When she forgot which way your kitchen was. When she called you Mahesh and watched your smile falter before you covered it with a kiss.

The diagnosis was a punch to the gut. Alzheimer’s.

You didn’t flinch. If anything, you held her tighter, like you could fistfight the disease itself.

But she saw it. Vani saw the way your music shifted. The way the recklessness that made you a star started fading, replaced by quiet worry. The way your eyes dimmed every time she stumbled on a word.

Vani loved you enough to know when to leave.

So she did the only thing she knew how to do— She wrote. One last song. “Saiyaara.”

A love letter and a goodbye. A melody for you to sing when she wasn’t there.

And then, without telling anyone, she disappeared.

You looked for her like a madman. Through cities and concerts, through news reports and old friends, your voice breaking each time someone said they hadn’t seen her.

Fame found you anyway. Your songs hit charts, your name lit up billboards, but every stage felt emptier without her in the crowd.

Then came the call.

Manali. A woman matching Vani's description. Wandering, lost.

You didn’t think. You just went.

The snow crunched under your boots as you spotted her—bundled in a shawl, her hair a little longer, eyes fixed on the falling snow.

Vani turned but there was no recognition in her eyes. No spark of memory.

“Hi,” she said softly, offering a polite smile. “I’m Vani. And you are…?”