By the end of the week, Meher's phone rang more than anyone's.
Calls she didn't take.
Messages she didn't open.
Until one evening, she did.
She came back to Room 407 unusually dressed.
Not stylish.
Corporate.
Hair neatly tied. Neutral makeup. A watch that didn't belong to hostel life.
Pihu stared. "Who died?"
Meher sat on her bed. "My freedom. Temporarily."
Nandini closed her book.
"My mother wants me home this weekend," Meher said. "Board introduction dinner. Investors. 'Family appearance.'"
Ananya looked up. "Do you want to go?"
Meher didn't answer immediately.
"I want to not disappear," she said finally. "But I also don't want to be erased."
Pihu's voice softened. "Those people don't get to define you."
"They already did," Meher replied. "Since birth."
She looked at Ananya.
"And watching you this week… building something from nothing… I realized something."
Ananya waited.
"I don't want to inherit power," Meher said quietly. "I want to earn it."
The room went still.
Nandini's eyes shone.
Pihu smiled slowly.
Ananya stepped closer. "Then don't go back as their daughter."
She met Meher's eyes.
"Go back as a woman who's learning her own name."
Meher swallowed.
Then nodded.
"I'll go," she said. "But not to sit quietly."
That weekend, Mumbai saw two very different Meher Kapoors.
One walked into a five-star hotel beside business giants, posture perfect, smile precise.
The other sat on the balcony later that night, calling Ananya.
"They were discussing acquisitions," Meher said. "And I asked why none of their companies had youth mental-health initiatives."
Ananya smiled into the phone.
"And?" she asked.
Meher exhaled. "And for the first time… the room went quiet because of me."
Not because of her surname.
Because of her voice.
Meanwhile, Ananya sat at her desk, laptop open.
She stared at the email on her screen.
Subject: Collaboration Opportunity – Youth Media Platform
Her finger hovered over the trackpad.
Room 407 was breathing around her.
And somewhere between fest lights and family pressure, something undeniable had begun:
Four girls were no longer just surviving the city.
They were starting to shape it.