The realisation comes much earlier for her than it does for him. She can't pinpoint he exact moment it happened but she knows that it was somewhere between him becoming one of her best friends and only confidants and the filming of their second movie together.
She realises it when she's recording her song for the film and she looks through the window of the recording studio and she sees him standing there, smiling at her, his attention completely on her and her heart flutters in her chest, and she realises it feels like nothing else she's ever felt before.
She spends most of the night laying awake in bed, thinking about him and them and wondering what she should do. Eventually, at about five a.m. she decides it's best to keep it to herself, not wanting to risk ruining their friendship.
***
She successfully keeps her feelings at bay for years. But in the middle of shooting for their third film together, she realises that those feelings have started coming back. Again, she decides to push them aside, but this time, it's harder.
They're rebuilding their old friendship, getting to know each other al over again, re-learning the old stuff they'd almost forgotten about and discovering whatever's new. They get close and then closer and then they're too close all over again and she's falling for him, hard and fast and she thins maybe he's falling for her too.
When the film ends and they don't go back to their casual acquaintance of the previous year, she thinks maybe she can tell him. And when he tells her he's decided to put himself first, stop listening to everyone else, she decides she's going to tell him.
And then, two days after Christmas, he calls her up and she can hear the tears in his voice despite his falsely cheery tune when he tells her he's sorry but she may hear from him less this year because he's got too much on his plate.
She tells him it's okay and she understands and they'll at least see each other on set in April. After she puts the phone down, she decides she's actually going to move on this time.
Just about four months later as she films him cutting his cake on his birthday and smiling like he's the happiest he's ever been, she realises that she's completely screwed because her heart still speeds up when that smile is directed at her.
It's in that moment that Alia Bhatt realises that she's still completely, irrevocably in love with Varun Dhawan and she doesn't think she's ever going to get over him.