I Confirmed Cambridge While He Was Laughing With Her Chapter 06

I Confirmed Cambridge While He Was Laughing With Her Chapter 06

A week later, Martha posted a new Instagram update.

[What’s gotten into Silas lately? I ask him out for meals, he says no. I hit him up to game, he ignores

me. He just stares at his phone all day. Can anyone tell me where Jennifer went?]
Someone commented underneath: [Did they break up?]

Martha replied: [No way. They grew up together.]

Grew up together. And yet when we grew up, he bought another girl a

three–thousand–two–hundred–dollar necklace, while all I got was a ten–dollar keychain.

I scrolled past the post without liking it.

Cambridge coursework was rigorous, my schedule packed from dawn till dusk. The library opened at nine, and I showed up at eight–fifty every morning.

No more saving seats for anybody. I could sit wherever I pleased.

By the tenth day, Silas’s flood of messages slowed from more than a dozen a day down to two or

three. His tone shifted too.

He no longer demanded to know my location or begged me to call back. Instead he sent trivial

daily updates.

[The cafeteria lasagna was terrible today, nothing like yours.]

[They resurfaced the track. It’s bright blue. You would’ve loved it.]

[It’s raining here. Is it raining where you are?]

He had no clue I was in the UK, that an eight–hour time–zone separated us. When it rained for him, it

was already evening where I lived.

I never replied to a single one.

On the fifteenth day, he sent a photo. It was his wrist, wearing that S–charm necklace I’d given him.

The thin chain sat tight around a man’s wrist.

[I wear it every single day.]

When I’d first gifted it to him, he’d claimed he hardly wore jewelry. He’d tossed it into a drawer,

buried among random clutter.

Now he wore it daily. But I no longer cared.

On day twenty, Hazel texted me: [Silas and Martha had a huge fight.]

[What about?]

[Martha posted in the class group chat that Jennifer couldn’t wait to get away, that she was never happy dating Silas. Silas shot right back in the chat ‘Shut up. You have no idea what you’re talking about.‘]

[And then?]

[Martha fired back, ‘Oh, I don’t? For a whole month before she left you spent every day hanging out with me. No wonder she left.‘]

[Silas didn’t say another word.]

[Martha deleted all her messages, but screenshots had already spread everywhere.]

I stared at my screen, utterly calm.

Once upon a time, words like these would’ve gutted me. I would’ve burned with hurt, locking

myself in a restroom stall to cry. Not anymore.

Starting on day twenty–five, Silas’s messages shrank to one single line, repeated every day without

fail: [Jennifer, I’m sorry.]

The first time I read it, I froze for a second.

The second day, it meant nothing.

Third, fourth, fifth day.

Jennifer, I’m sorry. Those same words, sent thirty times over.

He had finally figured out where he went wrong. But I’d spent two years waiting for this apology. He spoke it only after I no longer needed to hear it.

I didn’t reply to him and continued writing my paper

The leaves outside my window had begun to gold. Autumn came earlier in Britain than back home.

My phone lit up. Not Silas. An unfamiliar local UK number.

[Hey, is this Jennifer? It’s Louis, your next–door flatmate, also an exchange student. The printer on

the third floor of the library is broken. Do you know where else I can print?]

[There’s one next to the front desk on the first floor

[Thanks a ton. Quick question, do you always show up this early?]

[Just habit.]

[Let me buy you a coffee tomorrow to say thanks.]

A faint smile tugged at my lips as I read the text.

It had been so long since someone talked to me this simply. No errand runs, no seat–saving

favours, no begging me to help pick out jewellery. Just plain, uncomplicated, equal conversation.

[Sure.]

That one word came easily.