I Confirmed Cambridge While He Was Laughing With Her Chapter 10

I Confirmed Cambridge While He Was Laughing With Her Chapter 10

Day ninety. Winter settled over Britain. Days grew short, streetlights flickered on by four in the

afternoon.

I pulled my scarf tight and stepped out of the library, Louis walking beside me. “What are you doing

for Christmas? Flying home?”

“Too expensive for plane tickets. I’m staying.”

“Then spend it with me. I’m not going home either. We can buy groceries from the shop, I’ll cook.”

“You cook?”

“Nothing fancy. Just pasta and stuff.”

“Then pasta it is.”

He smiled.

We reached the entrance to my apartment building and he stopped short. “Jennifer.”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Back then… were you really unhappy?”

The cold wind bit at my neck, and I pulled my scarf tighter. “What makes you say that?”

“When you first got here, you seemed so surprised whenever someone was kind to you. I bought

you a cheap two–pound coffee and you thanked me three separate times.”

“Did I really?”

“You did. You acted like you weren’t used to being cared for.”

I stood under the streetlamp and said nothing.

He didn’t push me for an answer. “Whatever happened before, things will get better from here.”

He waved and headed off.

Alone in my flat, I sat at my desk and zoned out for a little while.

On my desk lay the pressure–relief earplugs Louis had gifted me, the Jolly Ranchers from the

grocery store, and an architectural sketch he’d drawn. It showed the main entrance of the library,

with a faint back–view figure of a girl in a ponytail tucked into the corner.

That was me. He’d said he’d sketched it while drawing the building itself. “You just happened to be

standing there, so I added you in.”

You just happened to be standing there, so I added you in. No performative gestures, no desperate

attempts to win favour. I had simply belonged naturally inside his frame.

My phone buzzed. Silas sent his final message.

[Jennifer, today would’ve been our two–year anniversary, if we hadn’t broken up.]

[I went to your family home. Your mom made ravio. She asked how you’re eating over here, if

you’ve lost weight.]

[She gave me a scarf to pass along to you. I shipped it to the address Hazel gave me. Don’t be

mad at her.]

[I stood outside your old house for a while. Your mom said she hasn’t touched your bedroom.]

[Your old school notebooks are still on the desk. You scribbled a line on the title page.]

[“I hope the person I like will like me back too.“]

[I’m sorry. I told you I loved you far too late.]

Reading those words stung my eyes. Not from romantic longing, but from quiet sorrow.

The seventeen–year–old girl who’d written that line had waited seven years. All she’d gotten was a

ten–dollar keychain and “That’s just how she is, try not to take it personally.” Now he said he loved

me. Only after I’d stopped loving him.
I didn’t reply. I set my phone aside and stared for a long time at that architectural sketch.

The ponytailed girl in the corner stood quiet in the drawing.

When Louis drew, she was simply there. She didn’t need to shrink herself to fit into someone else’s

world. She didn’t need to say “okay” a hundred times just to be remembered. She didn’t need to

stand out in pouring rain, soaked to the bone, guarding another person’s belongings.

She only needed to exist, and be seen.

On Christmas day, Louis cooked spaghetti bolognese. The flavour was mediocre, the eggs slightly

burnt.

He scratched his head sheepishly. “Turned out harder than I expected.”

“It tastes great.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

He smiled, showing that sharp canine tooth again.

Snow began to fall outside the window, the first snow of the season.

He leaned forward to glance outside, then turned back toward me. “Jennifer, will you still be here

next year?”

I watched the snow drift down, soft and white, setting onto that unfamiliar tree outside my

window.

When I arrived, its leaves had been green. Then golden yellow. Now buried under snow.

Ninety days. I had arrived as a girl publicly humiliated when someone ripped at her bra strap. Now I was a young woman living abroad, drawn into another person’s sketch.

“I will,” I said.

This time, I wasn’t staying for anyone else. I was staying for myself.

(The End)