My eyes opened to the soft sound of pages turning. The sedative haze had receded, leaving behind a cottony dryness in my mouth and that peculiar emptiness that followed drug-induced sleep—no dreams, no rest, just a blank space where hours should be. The room was dimmer now, afternoon sun slanting through half-closed blinds, painting gold stripes across the institutional blue blanket covering my legs. I turned my head carefully, mindful of the lingering dizziness, and found Rehansh sitting in the visitor's chair beside my bed, a dog-eared paperback open in his hands.

He hadn't noticed I was awake yet, and for a precious moment, I studied him unobserved: the slight furrow between his brows as he concentrated, the way one curl falls stubbornly across his forehead despite his occasional, absent brushing at it, the unfamiliar glasses perched on a nose I knew by heart. Now that I could see him properly, I realized he was missing those grey sprinkles on his hair and looked a tad bit younger than I saw him in his pre-wedding photos and videos. The images of him standing so close to another girl, his endearing smile reserved solely for her and his arms wrapped around her waist in a possessive hold burned my nerves. I quickly pushed that memory away.

In the quietness of the room, with just the rhythmic beep of monitors and the air conditioning's low hum for accompaniment, I allowed myself the luxury of pretending things were simple. That this was my Rehansh, visiting me after some ordinary injury. That we'd laugh about this someday over coffee, just another story in our shared history. The fantasy was sweet but dissolved like sugar in water as reality reasserted itself. The IV in my arm. The lingering confusion about who I was and why everyone insisted on calling me by another name.

My slight movement caught his attention, because Rehansh looked up suddenly, surprise registering briefly before his expression softened into something I couldn't quite name—relief, perhaps, or concern, or some complex emotion that existed in the space between those two. He marked his place in the book with a slip of paper and set it aside.

"Hey," he said, the word carrying more weight than its simplicity suggested. "You're back."

"How long was I out this time?" My voice sounded rusty, unused.

He checked his watch, a simple analog timepiece with a leather strap that I'd never seen before. "About four hours. It's just past three." He reached for a plastic cup on the bedside table. "Water?"

I nodded, suddenly aware of how parched my throat felt. He held the cup to my lips, his other hand gently supporting the back of my head to help me drink. The position was intimate in a way that should feel awkward but somehow didn't. The water was room temperature but tasted like salvation, washing away the medicinal aftertaste that coated my tongue.

"Where's Mrs. Rao?" I asked after I'd drained half the cup.

"Aunty went home to shower and change. She'll be back for the evening shift." He set the cup down and adjusted my pillow without being asked, his movements betraying a familiarity with caretaking that surprised me. "Uncle...Your father is coming after work."

My father. Another stranger who would look at me with expectations I couldn't fulfill. The thought made my chest tighten with a mixture of dread and something like grief. I pushed it aside, focusing instead on the one thing that mattered right now: I was alone with Rehansh, fully conscious, and uninterrupted for the first time since my failed escape.

"You know my mother?" I asked.

A faint smile appeared on his face. "It took me two years to gather the courage to face your mother, but I finally did it when I was on the brink of losing you."

Two years. The casual reference to a shared past—a past I had no memory of—sent a ripple of discomfort through me. Before I could dwell on it, I decided to act. The doctor and Mrs. Rao—My mother—were gone. It might be my only chance to get straight answers from the one person who might understand.

I pushed myself up on my elbows, ignoring the dull throb of pain that radiated from various injury sites. "I need to talk to you properly. Not from this... invalid position."

Concern immediately replaced the easy smile on Rehansh's face. "You shouldn't be moving around yet. The doctor said—"

"I don't care what the doctor said," I interrupted, forcing my body into a sitting position despite its protests. "I need answers, and I can't get them lying down like some... some specimen under observation."

My legs swung over the side of the bed in a motion that cost me more effort than it should. The room tilted alarmingly as blood rushed from my head, and for a moment, I thought I might pass out again. I gripped the edge of the mattress, knuckles whitening with the effort to remain upright. My bare feet dangled above the cold floor, the distance suddenly seeming insurmountable.

"What are you doing?" Rehansh was on his feet now, alarm evident in his voice. "You can't—"

"I can," I insisted, though my body screams otherwise. "I need to stand up. To talk to you face to face. Like a person, not a patient."

Before he could stop me, I slid forward, intending to lower myself gently to the floor. Instead, my legs—weakened by injury and days of bed rest—buckle immediately. The room spun in a sickening whirl of colors and shapes, and I felt myself falling.

Then, suddenly, I was not. Strong arms encircled me, catching me before I could crumple to the floor. Rehansh's body was solid against mine, his grip secure yet gentle, mindful of my injuries. My face pressed against his chest, and that scent—sandalwood and mint—filled my nostrils again, achingly unfamiliar yet somehow known in that context.

"Why are you like this?" His voice vibrated through his chest, the words heavy with what sounds like genuine pain. "Can't you stop hurting yourself?"

The rawness in his tone startled me. This wasn't the professional concern of the doctor or the maternal worry of Mrs. Rao. This was something else—something personal and anguished in a way I wasn't prepared for. I pulled back slightly, trying to see his face, but the motion sent another wave of dizziness washing over me. My knees gave way completely, and I sagged in his arms.

Without hesitation, Rehansh adjusted his grip, one arm supporting my back while the other moved beneath my knees. He lifted me with surprising ease, cradling me against his chest as if I weighed nothing at all. The world tilted again as he turned, carrying me the short distance back to the bed. Despite my protests, my body betrayed me with its weakness, unable to do anything but surrender to his care.

"You've lost weight," he murmured, almost to himself, as he set me down with exquisite gentleness on the mattress. "You were always slender, but now..."

His hands lingered after he'd placed me safely back in bed, one at my waist, the other at my shoulder, as if he was reluctant to break physical contact. His face hovered above mine, close enough that I could see flecks of amber in his dark brown irises behind the glasses—a detail I'd never noticed before, or perhaps one that belonged to this version of him, not the one from my memories.

"The water," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "Can I have more?"

He straightened, reached for the cup, and helped me drink again. His other hand supported the back of my neck, fingers warm against my skin. There was something deeply intimate about being cared for this way, something that made heat rise to my cheeks despite the clinical setting.

When I'd had enough, he set the cup aside and adjusted the bed so I was sitting up without having to support myself. The pillow he placed behind my back was perfectly positioned to ease the strain on my spine. Those were not the actions of someone unfamiliar with providing care, with anticipating another's need.

"Better?" he asked, settling back into the visitor's chair, though he pulled it closer to the bed now.

I nodded, studying his face. In many ways, he was exactly as I remembered—the shape of his mouth, the angle of his jaw, the way his left eyebrow rose slightly higher than his right when he was concerned. But the glasses, the curlier hair, the ease with which he moved in that hospital room—those belonged to a stranger.

"Rehansh," I began, then stopped, uncertain how to phrase the questions that crowded my mind.

"I'm listening," he said simply, his eyes fixed on mine with an intensity that was almost uncomfortable.

"What's happening to me?" The words came out small, vulnerable in a way I didn't intend. "It's scary. I want to go home."

His expression softened, the concern in his eyes deepening into something that looked remarkably like tenderness. "They told me you're experiencing a form of amnesia. Post-traumatic retrograde amnesia, the doctor called it. It means you've lost memories from before the accident."

"But I haven't lost memories," I countered, frustration edging into my voice. "I have memories. They're just... different from what everyone tells me they should be."

He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped together as if in prayer. "The doctor said that sometimes, when the brain experiences severe trauma, it can... create alternative narratives. False memories that feel completely real to the person experiencing them."

"False memories," I repeated, the words tasting bitter. "That's what they think is happening? That I've invented an entire life for myself?"

"They think," he said carefully, "that your brain is trying to make sense of the gap created by the trauma. That it's filled in the blanks with a story that seems coherent to you, even if it doesn't match reality."

"And what do you think?" I challenged, searching his face for some sign, some acknowledgment that he believed me over them.

He exhaled slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. "I think you're in pain. I think you're scared and confused. And I think pushing yourself to remember isn't helping."

"Don't pressure yourself," he continued, his voice gentle. "Your memory will come back eventually. The doctor says the best thing you can do is rest, let yourself heal, and be open to familiar surroundings and people."

Familiar. Nothing felt familiar except him, and even he was different in subtle ways that made me question my own sanity. The Rehansh I knew doesn't wear glasses. Didn't have curly hair that fell across his forehead. Didn't move with that easy confidence in a caregiving role.

A thought occurred to me, so obvious that I wondered why it hadn't surfaced before. If I was wrong about who I was, if my memories were false, then perhaps I was wrong about him too. Perhaps that wasn't Rehansh at all, but someone who merely resembled him. The possibility sent a chill through me despite the warmth of the hospital room.

"Who are you?" The question emerged as barely more than a whisper, fear making my voice tremble. "Are you really Rehansh? Or is that just another name I've... invented?"

Something shifted in his expression—surprise, maybe, or concern. He reached across the small distance between us, his hand covering mine where it rested on the blanket. His palm was warm, slightly calloused in places that spoke of work I knew nothing about. Our fingers brushed, and I felt a spark—not the metaphorical electricity of romantic fiction, but something more primal, a recognition that transcended conscious thought. My body knew his touch, even if my mind was confused about his identity.

A vivid memory surged in my mind: the blaring horns, the traffic light, the police siren, and a voice—his voice. His hands reached out, pulling me close to his chest, my blood staining his white shirt. I saw his face through a foggy lens, his eyes filled with tears as he pleaded for me to cling to life, a remnant of this world rather than the last.

A single tear escaped, tracking down my cheek before I could stop it. His free hand moved to my face, thumb gently wiping away the moisture in a gesture so tender it nearly undid me.

"You're not Rehansh, right?" I whispered, the words catching in my throat. "Who are you, and how do I know you?"

"I'm your boyfriend, Aarav," he said, the name falling from his lips like a stone into still water, creating ripples that distorted my entire reality. The confidence in his voice collided with the uncertainty in his eyes as his thumb traced the path of my tear down my cheek, a touch that felt simultaneously foreign and achingly familiar. Something inside me recognized the truth before my mind could process it—a cellular memory that transcended whatever damage had been done to my consciousness.

I stared at him, searching for the lie in his face but finding only painful sincerity. The name he had given—Aarav, not Rehansh—hung between us like an accusation.

"No," I whispered, pulling back from his touch, my head shaking in automatic denial. "You're Rehansh. You work at TechFuse. We've known each since fifth standard. You're my best friend and I-"

His hand hovered in the air between us for a moment before retreating to his lap. The absence of his touch left my skin inexplicably cold.

"I'm Aarav Mehra," he said gently, as though introducing himself to a frightened child. "I study literature at St. Francis Xavier's, where you're studying. We're in the same class. We've been together for almost two years."

The monitor beside the bed betrayed my accelerating heart rate with insistent, quickening beeps. The noise drew his attention briefly before his eyes returned to mine, filled with a patience that only made me more desperate.

"You're lying," I insisted, though the conviction in my voice sounded hollow even to my own ears. "Or confused. Or—or part of whatever this is." My hand gestured vaguely at the hospital room, the entire impossible situation. "This isn't real. It can't be."

He sighed, a sound weighted with exhaustion that made me wonder how many times we'd had this conversation in the days since I woke. His fingers raked through those unfamiliar curls—a gesture so reminiscent of my Rehansh that it stole my breath for a moment.

"Look," he said, reaching into his back pocket. He pulled out his wallet, worn brown leather creased with use, and extracted something from it. "Maybe this will help."

He placed a photograph in my lap. The paper was slightly creased at one corner, the glossy surface smudged with fingerprints that suggested frequent handling. I picked it up with trembling fingers, and the world tilted beneath me.

It was us. Undeniably us. His arms were around my shoulders, my head tilted against his chest in a gesture of casual intimacy. We're standing before a backdrop of autumn trees, gold and red leaves framing our smiling faces. My hair was shorter than I remembered wearing it, styled in loose waves that brushed my shoulders. His curls were wilder in the photograph, tousled by what appeared to be a breeze. We looked happy. We looked in love.

"That was taken last October," he said softly. "Weekend trip to your father's village house. You insisted on picking flowers at dawn for the temple, even though it was freezing. I complained the entire time."

His lips curved into a half-smile of remembrance, and something tugged at the corners of my mind—not quite a memory, but a sense of déjà vu so powerful it made my stomach lurch.

"I don't..." My voice faltered. "I don't remember this."

"I know." His hand covered mine again, warm and solid and real. Our fingers brushed, and I felt a spark—static from the hospital's dry air, but it jolted me nonetheless. "But it happened. We happened, Anaya."

That name again. Not mine. Not me. Except the evidence before me suggested otherwise.

"Why do I remember you as Rehansh, then?" The question bursted from me with unexpected ferocity. "Why would I invent a whole different name for you?"

He looked away for the first time, his gaze fixing on the window where late afternoon sun created patterns on the floor. "The doctor has a theory about that, actually." His thumb moved in small circles against the back of my hand, an unconscious gesture that suggested long familiarity. "Rehan Shah was your literature professor last semester. Brilliant guy, very charismatic. You admired him enormously."

"Rehan Shah," I repeated, the syllables strange on my tongue. "And I... combined it? Into Rehansh?"

He nodded. "That's their theory. That your brain took elements of reality and... reconfigured them. Rehan Shah became Rehansh. I became your childhood friend instead of your boyfriend." His voice caught slightly on the last word. "The doctor says it's not uncommon in cases like yours. The brain preserves emotional connections but changes the context."

I stared down at the photograph again, tracing the outline of our entwined figures with a fingertip. The image was undeniably real, the paper substantial beneath my touch. But the memory it supposedly captured remained locked away, inaccessible to me.

"Tell me how we fell for each other," I said suddenly, looking up to meet his eyes. "If you're really my boyfriend, tell me something only you would know."

The challenge in my voice didn't seem to offend him. Instead, something like relief crossed his features—as if he had been waiting for this opportunity.

"We met in the university library," he began, his voice taking on the cadence of a story often told. "You were struggling to reach a book on the top shelf. I offered to help, but you were stubbornly determined to get it yourself. You dragged over a stool, climbed up, and promptly fell backward—directly into my arms."

The image he painted was vivid, though it stirs no recognition within me. Still, I found myself leaning forward, hungry for more details of that life I supposedly lived.

"The book was Nabokov's 'Pale Fire,'" he continued. "You were writing a paper comparing it to Shelley's 'Frankenstein'—examining the nature of narrative identity and unreliable narrators." A wry smile touched his lips. "Ironic, considering our current situation."

"And then what happened?" I pressed, searching his face for signs of fabrication but finding only what appeared to be genuine reminiscence.

"I asked you for coffee. You declined." He chuckled, the sound warm and familiar in a way that made my chest ache. "Then I kept showing up at the library at the same time every day until you finally agreed just to make me stop loitering around your favorite study spot."

The story sounded plausible, even charming. But it belonged to strangers—to Aarav and Anaya, not to Rehansh and me.

"What else?" I demanded, needing more, needing something that would either confirm or shatter that alternate reality he was presenting.

His expression softened. "You hate cilantro. You say it tastes like soap. You can recite entire passages from 'Jane Eyre' from memory. You sleep in the library while studying, always, and you talk in your sleep sometimes—mostly nonsense, but occasionally profound things that you never remember when you wake up."

Each detail landed like a physical blow, stealing my breath. Those were intimate knowing, the kind that came only from close proximity, from shared moments and the mundane magic of everyday togetherness.

"You have a small birthmark on the right side of your neck," he continued, his voice lower now, intimate. "It's shaped a bit like Italy. You laugh whenever I point that out. You're ticklish behind your knees but nowhere else. You cry at commercials with dogs in them but can watch the most devastating films without shedding a tear."

My hand rose involuntarily to my neck, feeling the outline of a birthmark I knew was there, exactly where he described it. I'd thought it looked more like a teardrop than a country, but I could see how someone might interpret it differently. Someone who had seen it. Touched it.

"How would you know about my birthmark if..." The question trailed off, the implications too overwhelming to voice.

"Because I've seen it," he said simply. "Because I know your body as well as I know my own."

Heat flooded my face at his words, at the quiet certainty with which he spoke of an intimacy I had no memory of sharing with him. An intimacy that, in my remembered reality, I'd only ever imagined sharing with Rehansh—who was apparently not Rehansh at all, but Aarav. My boyfriend. Not my crush.

"I don't remember," I whispered, the words barely audible. "I don't remember any of it."

"I know." His voice cracked slightly, revealing the pain beneath his composed exterior. "And it's killing me, Ana. To sit here day after day, first waiting for you to wake up and now watching you look at me like I'm a stranger. To hear you call me by another name."

Ana. The diminutive landed differently than Anaya, triggering something deep within me—not quite a memory, but a sense of rightness that I couldn't explain. No one had ever called me like that before. Except, apparently, he had. Countless times.

A sudden, vivid flash cut through my consciousness—his voice, murmuring that name against my ear, his breath warm against my skin in the darkness. A memory? Or just my imagination, filling in blanks with what seemed plausible given that new information?

"I'm sorry," I said the inadequacy of the words making my eyes sting with fresh tears.

His fingers tightened around mine. "Don't apologize. This isn't your fault. The accident—"

"The accident I don't remember," I finished for him, frustration edging into my voice. "The accident that apparently stole not just my memory but my entire identity and replaced it with...with some fiction about being twenty-eight and working in marketing."

"The doctor says it's your brain's way of protecting itself," he offered gently. "Creating distance from the trauma by fabricating a different life entirely."

"How convenient," I snapped, then immediately regretted my tone when I saw him flinch. "Sorry. I just—it feels so real, Reha—Aarav." The name felt foreign on my tongue, but I forced myself to use it. "Everything I remember feels real. How am I supposed to just...accept that my entire life as I know it is a delusion?"

He looked at me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then, with deliberate slowness, he raised his hand to my face again. This time, I didn't pull away. His palm cupped my cheek, warm and slightly calloused—a student's hand, a younger hand.

"You don't have to accept anything right now," he said softly. "Just...be open to the possibility that what I'm telling you is true. That the doctors are right. That you are Anaya Rao, twenty-two years old, studying literature at St. Francis Xavier's. That you have a mother named Athiya Rao who loves you more than her own life. That you have a father named Vikram Rao who's been carrying your favorite books to the hospital every day, hoping something will trigger your memory."

His thumb traced the line of my cheekbone, a touch so tender it made my heart contract painfully in my chest.

"That you have a boyfriend named Aarav," he continued, his voice dropping to near-whisper, "who has been sitting beside your bed for days, praying to gods he doesn't even believe in, that you would wake up. That when you finally did, you would know him."

The raw honesty in his voice stripped away my defenses. I closed my eyes, leaning slightly into his touch despite myself. It felt right, that contact. Natural in a way that transcended conscious thought.

"I want to remember," I admitted, the words barely audible. "If all this is true—if you're really my boyfriend, if this is really my life—I want to remember it."

"You will," he said with a certainty I envy. "The doctors say your memories will come back gradually. Being in familiar surroundings will help. Going home, being with your family, your friends..."

"With you," I added, opening my eyes to find his face closer than before, his gaze intent on mine.

"With me," he agreed, something shifting in his expression—a lightening, a cautious hope. "If you want that."

The question hung between us, weighted with implications I was not sure I fully understood. If that was real—if he was Aarav and I was Anaya and we had been in love for nearly two years—then of course I should want to be with him. But the person who loved him was a stranger to me, a girl whose life I was wearing like ill-fitting clothes.

And yet...

There was something about him—about the way he looked at me, the way his hand felt against my skin, the way his voice softened when he said that nickname, Ana—that resonated deep within me, striking chords that vibrated with recognition even if I couldn't name the tune.

"I don't know what I want," I confessed, the honesty costing me more than I expected. "Everything is so confusing. But I know that when you walked into this room, before anything else, I recognized you. Not as Aarav, not as my boyfriend, but as...someone important. Someone I trust."

His smile was small but genuine, transforming his face in a way that tugged at something buried deep within my memory. "That's a start," he said. "We can build from there."

Build what, exactly? A relationship with someone I didn't remember loving? A life I didn't remember living? The enormity of the task before me—reconstructing an entire identity from scratch—was overwhelming.

And yet, looking at him—at the hope and fear and love mingled in his eyes—I found myself wondering whether that reality, however foreign, might not be worth embracing. My remembered life as a twenty-eight-year-old marketing executive was solitary, my love for Rehansh unrequited. That life, as Anaya with Aarav, seemed to contain a love that was returned, a connection that persisted even through the devastation of memory loss.

"Would you—" My voice caught, and I had to clear my throat before continuing. "Could you tell me about us? Not just facts, but...what we're like together?"

The question seemed to catch him off guard. He blinked rapidly, and I realized with a jolt that he was fighting back tears. "We're good together," he said finally, his voice rough with emotion. "We argue sometimes—you're stubborn as hell, and I can be too rigid. But we always find our way back to each other."

He paused, seeming to search for the right words. "You make me laugh more than anyone I've ever known. You see the world differently—you find beauty in places most people overlook. And you're fearless in your arguments, even with professors twice your age."

Pride colored his words, and I found myself smiling despite the strangeness of hearing about a self I didn't recognize. "And you?" I prompted. "What are you like, in this version of reality?"

His lips quirked at my phrasing. "I'm a literature student who takes himself too seriously most of the time. I overthink everything. I drink too much coffee and not enough water. I'm learning Malayali for your sake now."

The details accumulated, painting a picture of a life that sounded...pleasant. More than pleasant. A life filled with the kind of ordinary magic that constituted real happiness—shared jokes and minor irritations and the comfortable knowledge of another person's habits and quirks.

"It sounds nice," I admitted, looking down at our still-joined hands. "The life you're describing. Us."

"It is nice," he said simply. "It's not perfect. No relationship is. But it's ours, and I—" His voice broke slightly. "I miss it. I miss you."

The naked vulnerability in his voice made me look up, and what I saw in his eyes stole my breath—fear and hope and a love so profound it seemed to illuminate him from within. This man loved Anaya with his entire being. And if I was truly her, beneath the confusion and displaced memories, then I was loved in a way few people ever experience.

"I'm sorry," I whispered again, the words wholly inadequate for the situation.

His hand tightened around mine. "Don't be. Just...give us a chance. Come home when the doctors release you. Let us help you remember."

I looked at the photograph still resting in my lap, at our smiling faces frozen in a moment of happiness I couldn't recall. If everything he was saying was true—if my entire remembered existence was nothing but a fabrication created by my traumatized brain—then I was being offered a chance to reclaim a life that seemed, by all accounts, filled with love and connection.

And if he was wrong—if this was all some elaborate deception—what did I stand to lose by playing along until I could discover the truth?

"Okay," I said finally, the decision settling in me with unexpected rightness. "I'll try."

The relief that washed over his face was almost painful to witness, as though he had been holding his breath since the moment I woke without recognizing him. He raised our joined hands to his lips, pressing a kiss against my knuckles with a reverence that made my heart stutter in its rhythm.

"Thank you," he whispered against my skin.

The gesture felt both foreign and familiar, like a half-remembered dream. For a fleeting moment, I had the strange sensation of experiencing it from both sides simultaneously—as the woman who didn't know that man, and as the woman who had felt his lips against her skin countless times before.

I was left to wonder how I could possibly deny that reality if it was destined to be so beautiful. Whether real or delusion, the path before me offered something my remembered life did not: the chance to be truly known, truly loved. To be Anaya rather than anonymous. To belong to someone who looked at me as Aarav did now—like I was the miracle he'd been praying for.

"Ana," he said, my not-quite-name in his mouth sounding more right with each repetition, "welcome back."

And despite everything—the confusion, the fear, the lingering certainty that something was fundamentally wrong with that scenario—I found myself smiling back at him, a cautious step toward whatever truth awaited me on the other side of that hospital stay.

"I'm glad to be here again," I remarked, though a part of me genuinely felt that way while another part was cautious about the whole situation.