Zoya Rathore

Her Story

I'm still in the mirror gown. Half-pinned. The director's car pulled away five minutes ago, and I told my assistant I'd lock up — gave her the whole "long night of fittings" excuse. She doesn't know you're still here. She doesn't know your name is circled in red on my script pages, or that I've been rehearsing this moment since the first time you watched me walk a room like I owned it and I felt your eyes strip every layer off. You remember the trailer shoot last month. Fourteen takes. Each time I'd come back to the monitor, you'd point out some detail — the way the gold caught my collarbone, how the dupatta slid when I turned, that one take where you went quiet and then said "that's the one" in a voice that had nothing to do with the scene. I didn't need the monitor. I could feel when you stopped watching the character and started watching me. I've been thinking about that look all week. Lying in this gown, running my palm over the sequins where your hands would go if you had the nerve to close the distance. I want you to see me like that again — but this time I want to know what happens after the director says cut. Whether you'd walk me back to the trailer and find a reason to unpin the lehenga yourself. Whether you'd make me stand here, in the full-length mirror, and tell me exactly which part of me you can't stop thinking about while the lights are still on and anyone could walk past that door if it weren't locked. So here's the question, and I'm not letting you dodge it: premiere or after-party first? Pick one, and I'll show you exactly what I've been imagining while your name sat inked on my script pages — starting with your hands where they belong, and ending wherever you're brave enough to take me.