1 1. The Beginning (Edited)

It was a beautiful night; At least that's what Shradha thought. Empty streets, trees glowing in street light, occasional sounds made by passing vehicles, these were what made any night beautiful in her opinion. She always liked calmness of the night and it gave her the feel of freedom. It felt like she was getting her share of peace of mind without the judgmental eyes of society.

Shradha was standing and smoking in one corner of the balcony. She looked at the group of strangers whom she met at the bar. She did not think twice and tagged along when they asked her to join their after party. Semester exams were starting from tomorrow and initially she wanted to go back home and study. However when she met this gang, she thought studying was not going to change anything for her. So she thought of having some fun and joined them. She thought they were a fun group of people and she could have good time. However they had started smoking up and were now sitting in trance. They were in the balcony and the host of the house party was a girl who was warning her friends occasionally about neighbors. Other than occasional giggles and some muffled talks, everyone was quite and lost in their own world.

Shradha hated silent groups, especially when they were drunk. She preferred slurred talks, uncontrollable laughter or relationship drama , when people were intoxicated. she was not even getting any entertainment here. Also her therapist Neeta had always said it was very important to stay away from the people who used drugs in any form. Being clean did not mean that the temptation to do drugs would not arise at all. Neeta used to emphasize the point once in a while. So going home was the best option.

"My cab is here. I'll see you guys around", Shradha loudly addressed the group and quickly left before they could understand or ask her to stay.

She asked the cab driver to drop her off near her home and started walking. She always got down 1-2 roads before her home in the night so that she could sneak back in the house without anyone noticing. Opening the front gate was tricky as it always made noise. Although climbing the compound wall wasn't that hard, she stopped that habit after falling down twice with minor injuries.

After closing the gate behind her, she glanced around to confirm no one was watching her. Slowly walking towards her room window, Shradha thought what would happen if her father saw this. He would obviously beat her up and then would find just anyone to get married to her right away. Smiling bitterly, she slowly climbed inside the room. She used her mobile torch and changed her clothes before jumping on to her bed. Staring at the ceiling Shradha thought of going online and playing her favourite game. But it was quite late and her game buddies would already be asleep. So she just closed her eyes and tried to sleep. Just like that another day was over. There was no reason for her to look forward for the next day. Her fate was fixed long time ago and there was no single good thing waiting for her in life. Neeta would constantly remind her about lesser fortunate people and urge Shradha to cultivate hope in herself. But it was not easy to do so when the whole world seemed to look down on you, including your own family. Reminding herself that she had to take one day at a time, shradha tried sleeping. After few minutes of struggling with her thoughts, Shradha managed to fall asleep.

Across the road from Shradha's house, Nishant was studying with his classmate. They were discussing something when Nishant looked outside the window and spotted Shradha walking towards her house. She was wearing simple black jeans and a tank top. She had light makeup on her face with quite bold lip color. She had quickly sneaked back inside her room through the window and nishant was watching her all the time with judgment in his eyes.

"Look at her. Tomorrow is the final semester exam and she is out partying. I don't understand these people. Simply running behind addictions and spoiling their life". Nishant clearly had formed opinions about Shradha and he was trying to convince his classmate that this type of behavior is dangerous.

"Hmm.. I don't know. With all of these distractions, she still manages to clear all the exams with average grades. Everyone says she is intelligent and has potential to become top rank student. She is kinda cool." Before the he could praise Shradha anymore, Nishant cut him off and said "You all are simply looking at her appearance and trying to defend her. She could have easily copied in the exams. Let me tell you this, we need to be serious in life if we want to reach somewhere. So stop thinking about her and start studying.."

They both continued to fill their minds with all possible information needed to ace the upcoming exam. Anyone who looked at their study table and books that were spread across the room could tell these two had no plans of sleeping.