Whispers in Cambridge Halls

Monday held a lecture I could not afford to miss—an austere academic affair in the turquoise-and-oak grand hall, where the ever-diligent Miss Greer would be stationed at the entrance, marking attendance with the unerring precision of her shrewd eyes behind oval lenses. No student had ever escaped her notice, so the idea of persuading a friend to sign in on my behalf was an impossible luxury. Not that I had any acquaintances close enough to be called friends.

In truth, my attendance had already sunk to a perilous threshold. To avoid being sent back home, I dragged myself from bed on the eighth ring of the alarm clock, despite the havoc of the previous night.

The path from bedroom to bathroom felt more arduous than the Long March. I stumbled along the wall, picking my way over the scattered heaps of clothes and underwear littering the floor. One slipper lay abandoned midway; I left the other behind, next to a pair of men’s boxer shorts at the foot of the bed, and padded barefoot into the bathroom.

Perhaps it was the hangover, but my head still throbbed with a dull heaviness. Leaning against the sink, I stared vacantly at my reflection—swollen brow, reddened nose, lips grazed with tiny abrasions. A trail of bruises and bite marks ran from chin to neck, stopping abruptly above the rumpled collar of my dress.

The alcohol-induced blackout had erased any clear memory of last night’s events. Thankfully, when I woke, there had been only my boyfriend lying in my bed, and not two or three random plumbers from God-knows-where.

With one hand on the faucet and the other clutching my toothbrush, I filled my mouth with foamy toothpaste. Just as I bent to scoop water into my palms, a pair of strong, unyielding arms closed around my waist from behind. Even through the fabric of my nightdress, I felt the solid tension of his muscles, warm and faintly damp with sweat.

Through the half-fogged mirror, I saw the pale down of his tanned skin brush against the wool of my sleepwear.

“Wait a minute, I—”

I mumbled around the toothbrush, but before I could finish, the man radiating pure masculine heat bent to kiss my foam-speckled cheek. Our eyes met in the glass—his green and heavy with sleep—for three long seconds, before he spoke with unnerving briskness.

“I think we need to break up, Peggy.”

His foreign lilt was thick, tinged with the nasal resonance of his Scottish heritage. I’d once told him that his accent—so maddening in my listening exams—was what made me love it in the first place. Yet, for the first time, I found the sound grating.

“You’re joking… right?”

A hot tear threatened to spill from the corner of my eye, but I forced it back, though my throat betrayed me with a hoarse tremor. My mind was almost blank save for the echo of *How could this be?* I heard myself whisper *Why?* again and again.

He seemed impatient. His arms dropped away abruptly, his brows knitting as he took in my bedraggled reflection.

“You know my thesis hasn’t passed yet. My roommate’s been covering my rent for months. I can’t keep wasting time playing around with you… I deserve a better life, Peggy.”

As he spoke, the right corner of his mouth twitched upward, his gaze fixed unnervingly on my face—a discordant expression that told me he was lying.

From some buried reserve, I found the strength to avert my eyes, finish washing up, and snatch a towel to dry my face before turning to face him.

I barely reached one metre sixty, a bean sprout in the crowd of London’s tall figures. The height difference forced me to crane my neck to meet his emerald gaze.

I drew in the deepest breath of my life and shouted at the top of my lungs—

“My name is Penny! *Penelope*! You bastard! Pete!”

His reaction was even sharper than mine.

“What the hell—who’s Pete? I’m Matthew!”

Even after he stormed out, slamming the door behind him, I was still ransacking my mind for the owner of the name *Pete*.

By then, any will to attend the lecture had vanished. Tears streamed unchecked as I sat on the edge of the bed clutching a box of tissues, crying until my empty stomach growled its own protest.

I sniffled as I flung the damp, sticky wad of tissue—soaked with my tears and snot—into the bin beside the bed. My gaze lingered there for a moment, and a slow unease began to creep over me.

In a flash, I leapt from the bed and swept through the entire room, combing even beneath the frame, but the object I sought was nowhere to be found.

It took a long while for my stalled brain to fully register the thunderbolt. My hands began to tremble uncontrollably. I snatched up the bedside phone, stabbing at the buttons in a furious staccato, and the moment the line connected, I let out a high, sharp cry of rage:

“Damn you—how dare you not use protection?!”

“…”

A strange silence hummed at the other end.

I had no patience to ponder what it meant. In a tangle of jumbled English, my words spilled out rapid-fire: “My grandmother always told me—if a boy breaks my heart, I should sleep with his best friend… so you just wait, I will *definitely* sleep with your best friend—”

“Hello.”

The voice that answered was unfamiliar, wrapped in a refined Oxford accent, polite yet awkward.

“I suppose… you’re Matthew’s girlfriend—his ex-girlfriend, rather? I’m his…”

A pause stretched out, before he added, almost reluctantly, “…friend.”

“…”

I slammed the receiver down at once.

The university health centre offered free emergency contraception, and at the reception desk stood a massive cardboard box overflowing with complimentary condoms for students.

Before going in, I shoved on my sunglasses and pulled the brim of my cap as low as it would go. Ignoring the counsellor’s persistent attempts to draw me into recounting my sordid history with my ex, I took the pills, swallowed them with cold water, and felt a shade more at ease. On my way out, I scooped a generous handful of foil-wrapped condoms from the box and stuffed them into my pocket.

Back at my single rented dorm room, I made a perfunctory brunch of toast before turning all my focus to the location tracker on my phone, zeroing in on Matthew’s whereabouts.

After enduring more than twenty minutes on a tram, followed by nearly fifteen minutes on foot, I arrived just in time to cross paths with him as he stepped out of the library.

I threw out my arms to block his way, then swung the bag of Jissbon condoms hard against that infuriatingly handsome face.

“Next time, use a condom, you idiot.” I spat the words with contempt, turned, and was about to flee the scene when he caught my wrist from behind and, with effortless ease, hoisted me off the ground.

Brightly coloured foil packets clung comically to his short brown hair.

I knew I shouldn’t have laughed—but the sight tugged at my lips before I could stop it. That only stoked his anger. He gripped the back of my collar, his breathing growing heavier; I had no doubt he was considering pitching me like a baseball.

And then—my ears caught a sound that wasn’t mine. A laugh, fleeting—less than half a second—yet clear as day.

I turned toward it. The source stood just a few steps away, on the third stair of the library’s entrance.

He looked to be in his early twenties, a sports bag slung over one shoulder, hair a pale gold, eyes the colour of deep summer skies. His fitted T-shirt traced the clean, taut lines of his torso.

If memory served, this was Matthew’s best friend.