Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Pallavi walked towards the bathrooms, hoping to find an empty stall. She hadn’t been able to sleep well. Her mother pointed out that it could be because of her new pillow. Pallavi had denied it immediately but she was beginning to think it could be the problem. When she was packing, her mother had advised her to take her pillow from home but Pallavi had acted like an excited little teenager getting pocket money for the first time and wanted everything to be brand new for her new chapter of life. Sometimes she could be unnecessarily extra.

She searched the steam-clouded bathroom for an empty stall and found none. Pallavi yawned before she squeezed some toothpaste on her brush and wet it under the sink. A few girls walked in, hair held up in fancy claw-clips and neat buns held by rubber hair-ties. Without breaking their conversation, they parted ways to root themselves in front of different stalls as if it was their routine. When the stalls freed up, these girls went in.