Update: I realised today (5 years after I actually started writing) that this book is cringe as fvck and needs a serious revamp. I'll be editing the chapters one by one and publishing them again once I'm satisfied. Thank you.
Update: I think I've...
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Mira
I quickly ran a brush through my wavy hair, spritzed on some of my favourite perfume and applied some balm.
Today was the first day of college and I had to reach there early in order to get to know the campus properly. I was also planning to enquire about the hostel facilities because I couldn't rent a room forever. I had no source of income and my scholarship only covered my tuition and food expenses. I had also not received any compensation or extra cash for renting out a room temporarily.
I couldn't help but fidget around with my things in the room, checking and re-checking my files and forms. I was extremely excited about this new chapter of my life but a part of me was also afraid and anxious. This was a new place, a new country and I was going to come across new people-people that I don't know, people I wasn't familiar with.
There wasn't going to be anyone fending off the bad guys for me. I was on my own to experience the new life that I had been thrown into, for good or for bad.
It was an odd feeling-the kind where you feel as excited as you are nervous, the plummeting feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you face an inevitable fall into an endless dark pit with the hope that you might encounter something bright at the very end, and the exhilarating rush of thrill in your veins as you shout at the top of your lungs.
I wanted to laugh and dance around because I had finally managed to snap the chains of hypocrisy and archaic thinking that held me back from achieving my dreams and was here now, far from my old troubles and bucking up to face the new ones.
Pursing my lips, I stared at my reflection in the mirror. The same brown eyes I was so used to seeing, half-hidden behind my glasses, stared back at me.
My hair was in its usual ponytail that I'd been doing since I was 16. There was no styling here, no fancy braids, no poufs, no bangs...just a plain, simple, almost bland ponytail. I was pretty sure my hair had forgotten how it felt like to be put up in any other hairstyle apart from a ponytail which was a huge testimony to my extremely poor fashion sense and further, I supposed to my bumptiousness.
Sometimes I wondered why I didn't put more effort into the way I wore my hair. Was it because I was busy or was it just an outcome of my false sense of superiority?
I quickly put on a black top with lace detailing and slipped into my most comfortable pair of faded jeans. It wasn't the most exciting or voguish outfit to wear to the first day at the University but who cared?
I had stood out way too much in school and the attention I received had not been all that beneficial for me. It was a lot of effort and a source of constant headache trying to live up to people's endless expectations and I was so done with trying to do that.
I had learned it the hard way that people always found a reason to judge and gossip. No matter how one tried to live and no matter how hard it was to get by, people would always talk. It was sheer doltishness to beat yourself over it.
