‘Hey,’ he said, picking up instantly.
‘Are you unpacked?’
‘Yeah, all done. Mum left ages ago. I’ve been helping some of the others bring their suitcases up the stairs and stuff.’
‘Very nice and sociable of you.’
‘I’m going to be living with them for a year – always good to make a good impression.’
‘Fair point,’ I answered, suddenly wondering what my new companions thought of me. I’d briefly met three students from my halls, Pearl, Jennifer and Flo. They seemed nice enough, although we hadn’t all got together and had a proper chat yet, we’d been too busy organizing our new rooms while our parents faffed around us. I thought about going in and getting to know one of them a bit better, kicking off one of those firm friendships that people always talked about creating at uni, but the comfort of having Ben there, who I knew so well already, drew me in. ‘What are you doing now?’
‘Nothing. Just chilling in my room.’
‘Same here. Fancy going to the pub for one?’
‘Yeah, why not.’
One drink turned into two, turned into three, turned into four, turned into Ben having to carry me back to my place, only I couldn’t for the life of me remember what floor I was on or what room I was in. It was funny for all of two minutes and then, as we were shattered and too drunk to care, we gave up trying to find my new bed and took a little walk to Ben’s room instead. We curled up on the single bed and passed out instantly.
And so started our student life.
It didn’t take me long to form firm friendships with the girls in my halls, which wasn’t like me, but Pearl, Flo and Jennifer were awesome. Pearl, from East London, was a proper cockney – tough and feisty. She might have been just a little over five feet, but she had some gob on her and was as blunt as anything – a quality that was alarming at first but equally refreshing. Flo was from the Wirral, and was our group’s English rose. Her honey-like hair fell down in waves to just below her shoulders and her milky skin was flawless, not freckled like mine. She too had a boyfriend that she was separated from – he was a brick-layer and was staying up north – so I instantly felt drawn to her through our similar situations. Jennifer, an exotic-looking beauty with Indian roots on her mother’s side, was, rather ironically, from Nottingham, making her an endless source of information when Robert started heading out to all these places that I’d never heard of.
The morning after the night I’d slept in Ben’s bed instead of my own, I wandered in to find them all standing in the hallway, each leaning against their bedroom doors – Pearl’s room was next to mine on the left, Jennifer’s was adjacent to hers and Flo’s was directly opposite mine. They were all still in their pyjamas, looking like they’d not long since woken up, gulping on mugs of tea. They were mid-conversation but stopped when they saw me walk in wearing my previous night’s clothes, confirming that I hadn’t just got home late and then ventured out first thing before they’d woken up – I’d slept out.
‘There you are!’ sighed Flo, sounding relieved, before eying up my clothes with a troubled look. ‘We’ve been worried!’
‘Really?’
‘Of course we have, Maddy,’ Jennifer added with a sympathetic smile. ‘We thought you might’ve got cold feet and decided to leave us already.’
‘So … where have you been?’ asked Flo.
‘God, I got so drunk …’
‘Did you shag someone?’ asked Pearl.
See? Where others might have been more restrained on a topic, she was always ready to wade in and get to the root of a matter without hesitation.
‘What? No!’
‘Oh! I was sure this was going to be our first walk of shame,’ she laughed with mock disappointment. ‘What a pity!’
‘She’s not stopped going on about it,’ added Jennifer, rolling her eyes.
‘I have a boyfriend.’ I protested.
‘Well, that doesn’t stop some people!’ smirked Pearl.
‘I told her you weren’t doing that,’ chimed in Flo almost to herself as she gazed into her mug, looking uncomfortable with the conversation – I had a feeling that she, like me, wasn’t keen on any sort of confrontation.
‘So where were you, then?’ prodded Jennifer.
‘With Ben,’ I shrugged.
‘Your extremely fit BFF?’ asked Jennifer, her dark brown eyes widening in surprise.
I nodded, prompting the girls to look at each other and giggle.
‘What?’
‘Oh, nothing … I just hope I find a hunky friend to share a bed with, at some point,’ laughed Pearl, twirling her brown hair through her fingertips.