Chapter 77

• Stephanie woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and in a cheerful mood. Something about the morning seemed to light up her spirit. She turned to the wall clock hanging by her right side, just above her dressing mirror. The short arm of the clock pointed to the number five while the longer arm pointed almost at the number six. *Five thirty.* She thought, barely five hours to their departure for New Jersey. They had made arrangements and booked a flight which was to take off by ten that morning.
• As she gathered herself out of bed, still in her night wear, she stood in front of the full-length mirror and stared at the reflection that met her gaze. So much had happened in so short a time. This was her, a fully grown adult almost in her mid twenties. She kept staring at the woman in the mirror for a while, wondering and not ignorant of the fact that she wasn't the same young teenage girl that used to stare in this same mirror some years back.
• She had grown now. She was her own woman now, or at least she was trying to be. This room had been hers since her childhood. Within its walls were buried countless memories from her younger years. She turned to the wooden desk beside the window. Memories of how she had made so many paintings on it rushed through her mind. The walls were covered with different designs of her artwork. There was a painting of her in her graduation gown hanging on the left wall of the room. There was a painting of her entire family right beside it.