Dimple paused, considering her tone.
“You got the lead!” Priyal said impatiently. “InInsomnia!”
Dimple’s breath caught in her throat, a chill running down her spine. That—the starring role—had originally belonged to Irene. The very thing that was supposed to slingshot her into stardom and subject Dimple to a pointless existence. It hadn’t even occurred to her that Irene was no longer around to doit.
One star snuffed out, the other beginning to flicker.
“But they went with someone else…” Dimple mumbled absently.
“Apparently, they changed their mind. Scheduling conflicts with the previous actor, you know how it is. They want you now,” Priyal said. “Julie’s been trying to get ahold of you all day—that’s why I’m here. You would know all of this if you ever checked your phone.”
Priyal and Julie had been bombarding Dimple with texts and calls, but she’d ignored them. There was no telling what she might’ve said, given her fragile state of mind.
Dimple and Irene both knew that Irene had been given the leading role prior to her death, but there was one other person Dimple had forgotten to consider: the man who’d cast her.Insomnia’s director, Jerome Bardoux. Irene’s death hadn’t been publicized, yet somehow he already knew about it. And upon learning this, he’d immediately turned around and offered the role to runner-up Dimple Kapoor.This man was attempting to lock her into a contract before Innocent Dimple could realize she’d been offered a dead woman’s job. It was despicable.
And what did it say about Dimple that she was actually considering going through withit?
If she was going to do this, she needed someone who could corroborate Jerome’s manipulations and her innocence. Her word alone would count for nothing if news got out that she’d knowingly poached a job postmortem from the beloved Irene Singh.
“The role was supposed to be Irene’s,” Dimple found herself saying.
Priyal’s expression softened. “That’s why you were so devastated when you didn’t get it.” She hadn’t worked for Dimple for long, but even she’d come to realize how deep the threads of this rivalry extended. “Don’t think of this as them going with the second-best option,” Priyal told her, picking up on what was bothering Dimple in the way only a fellow actress could. “Think of this as the universe telling you that the role was meant to be yours all along.”
Dimple felt herself smile. Priyal was right. Irene had forfeited her claim over this role with her last breath. Even if Dimple didn’t take it, it would just go to someone else. At least she could do it justice.
Taking Priyal’s advice, she found her phone on the ground and turned it on. The poor thing began overheating the second the screen brightened, chiming with dozens of messages and voicemails. Dimple clicked through them all with Priyal hovering on her tiptoes over her shoulder.
The offer was official. Julie had confirmed it. There was a contract waiting for review in her inbox. Thanks to Hollywood secrecy and NDAs, the general public had no idea that Irene had been offered the role first. Hell, given how big of a book and how recent this was, Dimple doubted any of Irene’s friends or family knew either. Especially not if the director was planning on moving forward with filming regardless of Irene’s passing.
Dimple caught her reflection in the small mirror hanging beside her bookshelf. She thought of a stone sculpture fashioned in her honor. One with the thick arch of her brow and the deep hollow ofher dimples, immortalized through time. She thought of Atlas Andino. Of people who were too blinded by her stardom to care about any of the imperfections that lay underneath. Of her mother, who Dimple could barely remember despite being the only thing left of her legacy.
She called her manager back. Whoever it was judging her from above, whether it was some omnipotent deity or Irene Singh herself, Dimple hoped they could understand.
—
Later that samenight, looking through some old photos, Dimple came across something startling deep in her camera roll. It was so late, her eyes burning with lack of sleep, she was at first certain she was hallucinating. But it was real: a photo from one of the rare instances she and Irene had been working on the same film. The director had asked the cast for behind-the-scenes promotional content, and Irene, ever eager, had pressed their cheeks together and snapped the shot before Dimple could protest. Perhaps her surprise was why, from certain angles, the two of them almost looked like they got along.
It had never been posted, but Dimple had saved it anyway. She’d forgotten about it until now.
Looking at this, the version of Irene bleeding from her skull, neck bent at an unnatural angle, didn’t immediately snap to the forefront of her mind. Instead, she felt an intense wave of sadness that left her heart heavy. The woman standing next to Irene didn’t look like someone who’d killed her. She looked like a friend. Someone who had a right to mourn her.
Dimple couldn’t remember posting it. She must’ve done so in a fit of delirium because she couldn’t remember falling asleep either. And by the next morning, the news had broken just like Atlas and Eli had said it would.
Two contentious revelations were unleashed upon the world. First, that Irene Singh was dead. And second, that Dimple Kapoor and Irene Singh had once been the best of friends.
Chapter Five
February 2, 2026
It seemed JeromeBardoux, the director ofInsomnia,was just as eager to get Dimple on set as she was to be there. There was no time to waste before throwing herself into preparations, writing journal entries as her character until her wrist ached and reciting lines until her voice went hoarse. It was the only way to build the muscle memory in her brain that would allow her to call upon this fictitious woman as though she was a fragment of Dimple’s subconscious.
It didn’t scare Dimple how easily she adopted the mentality of a woman losing her mind. She herself had never been better. There could be no nightmares if Dimple dreamed of nothing but her own face, immortalized on the silver screen. There would be no time to ruminate in guilt if she worked herself until she passed out from exhaustion.
Dark circles were easy to conceal. Bloodstained hands, lessso.
She’d been so fixated on her preparations that she hadn’t realizedInsomnia’s cast had been released to the public until she met up with Priyal one week after accepting the role. It was her first day on set and her last day of peace. Priyal trailed behind her through the maze of what was easily the biggest and busiest studio Dimple had ever seen, an unusual stiffness in her steps. Dimple pulled her aside where there wasn’t anyone around to overhear.
“You seem upset,” Dimple remarked.
