They didn't go back to the hostel immediately.
They walked.
No destination.
Just movement.
The noise of the fest still rang in their ears when they finally stopped at a quieter stretch of road.
Meher hadn't spoken.
Pihu finally said, "Okay. I can't be funny right now. Who was that man?"
Meher looked at the traffic.
Then at the sky.
Then, finally, at them.
"My family runs Kapoor Group."
Silence.
Pihu blinked. "Like… malls Kapoor Group?"
"Like… real estate, hotels, textiles, media investments Kapoor Group," Meher corrected.
Nandini's breath slowed. "That's… huge."
Meher nodded. "That's my cage."
They stared.
She continued.
"I grew up in meetings. In airports. In houses where people changed but walls didn't."
She swallowed.
"My parents don't fight. They negotiate. My feelings were always… irrelevant data."
Ananya stepped closer but didn't interrupt.
"They trained me," Meher said. "To speak. To dress. To smile. To sit beside men twice my age and impress them."
Pihu's voice was barely there. "You were a child."
"I was a product," Meher replied.
"My mother wants me to join the company board next year. Media division. Public face. Young blood."
She laughed softly. "Businesswoman before I'm a woman."
Nandini asked quietly, "Then why are you here?"
Meher's eyes burned.
"Because for the first time… no one knew who I was."
She looked at Ananya.
"At first, you scared me. Because you were becoming something."
She looked at the others.
"But you saved me. Because you saw nothing. And stayed anyway."
Her voice cracked.
"I didn't want you to know. Because then I'd become… useful again."
Pihu stepped forward and hugged her without warning.
Hard.
Long.
"You idiot," she whispered. "We don't love resumes."
Nandini joined them.
Then Ananya.
Four girls.
On a Mumbai road.
Holding a truth that could have separated them.
But didn't.
Meher closed her eyes.
And for the first time, she wasn't an heiress.
She was just a girl being held.