After getting a long lecture from Nancy, both the girls left the cafeteria to head back home since they were done for the day in college. Even on their way to the parking lot, Nancy couldn't keep herself from lecturing her dumb friend who she thought was too innocent to know the cruel world they lived in.
"Who are you? A two-year-old child who gets tempted by a candy?" And without waiting for her "innocent friend" to respond, she also answered the question herself. "No, you are not, because you are even worse, ain't you? Tell me, Alisha, how can you be so silly?"
"Didn't I say that I am sorry?! I was forced to go to the hospital and when I say forced, I mean forced literally on a fucking gunpoint! It's not like I went with him on my will. I was forced to go! And for the clothes, I really like all of them so I am keeping them. So please stop scolding me now." Alisha almost yelled when both the girls were alone. It was rare for her to lose her temper, but today she did because she thought her purpose for gifting the clothes to Nancy was ruined. She wanted to gift her those blouses to make her happy and not to be scolded instead.
Nancy's anger immediately washed away. She realized she had gone a bit too far in her mother hen mode. Her tone immediately changed and she held Alisha by her shoulders to explain. "I am just concerned for you and you know that. Don't you?"
"Huh!" Alisha faked a humph and swatted her hands away. Seeing her face Nancy knew that she has started sulking with all the scoldings and her understanding of her proved further right when Alisha started walking ahead without waiting for her.
"Wait for me" Nancy started jogging to catch up with her as she was walking really fast.
"I am angry!" Alisha spat out in a childlike voice which made Nancy laugh.
"Is that so? And here I was planning to sneak another bottle of whiskey from my dad's cellar for Saturday night. It's fine if you don't want it. Will save me all the trouble." Nancy said shrugging her shoulders.
Coming from an Indian middle-class family of pure vegetarians, girls consuming alcohol was heavily frowned upon in Alisha's family. She was not allowed to drink or smoke at all. Alisha who had a wish on her bucket list to try all the varieties of alcohol could only do it whenever they stayed at Nancy's place by stealing some from her dad's bar.
Alisha immediately paused and Nancy internally smiled seeing that her trick worked. The girl whos sulking just a moment ago immediately turned back to Nancy and linked her arms with her in a cheeky manner. She smiled before she started to appease her friend in a sing-song voice. "Haha, I am not angry. I was just pretending it, hehe. Don't drop the whiskey plan, please."
Nancy broke into laughter seeing how spineless her friend was. "Is alcohol all that takes you to bring you back to your original self?"
"Yeah, fine fine. Don't poke fun at me now," Alisha said with a small pout. "Let's go"
"Yeah."
Both the girls parted ways and left the college on their own scooty. As Alisha rode out, she noticed a number of cars parked on the lane opposite to their college gate with a lot of men standing nearby.
She didn't give it much thought and turned her scooty to her way home. While she stopped at a traffic signal, she noticed the same cars that she had seen outside the college, paused a few meters behind her.
A small frown appeared on her face before she brushed off the idea thinking that she might be overthinking. When the lights turned green, she started her scooty again and continued riding.
After riding for a few minutes more, she realized that the bunch of cars was also behind her. 'Are they following me?' she thought to herself and increased her speed.
When she looked in the rearview mirror again she panicked, because the cars had also increased their speed. "I am fucked, Nancy was right."
To confirm her suspicion for the final time, she took a left turn on a connecting road and then two more turns to finally get worried, because the cars continued following her.
In her panic, she didn't notice the small gravels on the road ahead because her focus was on the rearview mirror. She tried to maintain balance which only led her to ride to the side of the road where a small puppy was eating something she couldn't notice. The small mistake of hers led her to lose her balance and she fell down, to get her face and arms scratched. "Aah," she gasped in pain.
The men from the cars that were following her immediately stepped out of their respective cars to help her up. Before Alisha could even realize she had fallen down, their feet were right in front of her eyes.
"Miss are you alright?" One of the men stepped forward to help her up to which Alisha rejected their help. He ignored her reaction and pulled the scooty from over her to park it on its stand.
While she tried to get up by herself, she looked around and realized she was really screwed because apart from her and those men, the road was visibly empty. One or two passersby that were in sight, didn't even care to stop.
In her mind, she cursed herself and swore to never ride on empty streets alone. No matter how heavy the traffic was, she would always take the busy streets from now on to avoid getting stuck in such situations.
After she finally got up without anyone's help she walked to her scooty, but was stopped just when she took her first step. The man that had offered her help, his hand was on her shoulders as he said, "You are Alisha Agrawal, right?"
Alisha's body turned stiff and her legs froze. At that moment she froze when she heard her name. She was truly fucked this time, she thought to herself.