My Roommate’s Late Night Calls Will Be Broadcast Campus-Wide

My roommate loved making explicit phone calls with her online boyfriend in the middle of the night. Every single night, her talk got dirtier and louder. We were kept awake until the break of dawn, practically begging her to tone it down. Instead of showing an ounce of remorse, she smirked at us and said we were just bitter and lonely. "Dying of jealousy watching someone else get loved, huh?" "Not my fault you girls are too ugly to land a guy." The funny thing was, she was easily the least attractive girl in our dorm. The three of us didn't care about dating because our workload in Microchip Engineering was brutal. As the top program on campus, if you failed an exam, you wouldn't graduate. Period. We studied all day and barely had enough sleep to function. To catch some rest, we tried everything. We talked to her nicely. We yelled. We even reported her to campus housing. Nothing worked. Brooke refused to change. Since every other dorm in the building was fully booked, I was pushed to my absolute limit. I gave her one last warning. "Keep pushing me, and I swear I'll patch your explicit phone calls directly into the university PA system." "If you're so shameless, let the entire campus listen." 1 "Who are you trying to fool? Are you some kind of hacker?" Brooke laughed so hard her entire bunk bed shook. "Did you watch too many cheesy spy movies? You think you can just tap away at your laptop keyboard and crack into the school's broadcast system? Monica, you study microchips, not computer hacking. Who do you think you are?" I stared at her without saying a word. Broadcasting her trashy calls didn't require high-level hacking skills at all. All I needed was for the radio station to keep its power supply on overnight, plus an old wireless broadcast transmitter brought into our room. As a senior technician at the campus radio station, I could pull that off with my eyes closed. I had already run the plan by my other two roommates. Since none of us could sleep anyway, we decided to see who could play dirty better. Brooke had crossed the line first. Her obsessive romance was none of our business. At first, she claimed there were mosquitoes on the balcony, so we kindly let her make her private calls inside the room. Then she pushed her luck. First, it was calling from ten to eleven at night. Then it stretched until midnight. Recently, she was still whispering dirty talk at two in the morning. It went from "Do you miss me today?" to explicit details about her favorite bedroom positions. She never wore headphones. She kept the speaker on full blast. She acted as if the three girls living in the same room didn't exist. The night before my midterms, she talked until three in the morning. I buried my head under my blanket trying to memorize formulas while listening to her moaning on speaker. Because I couldn't sleep, I failed the exam. Failing meant retaking the class. It meant losing my academic scholarship. It meant kissing my fast-track graduate school recommendation goodbye. I took a screenshot of my failing grade and posted it in the room group chat, begging her to keep her voice down. She replied with a laughing cat emoji. "You failed because you're dumb. Blaming me now?" I was about to jump out of bed and tear her hair out, but my roommate Brenda held me back. "Don't lose your temper, Monica. She wants us to hit her. Then she'll report us for bullying and get us disciplined." Dealing with a shameless parasite is exhausting because normal people have things to lose, while parasites have nothing to lose. So, to deal with a parasite, I had to be even nastier. "Who am I? I'm the one about to ruin your life," I said, my voice cold as ice. "Keep doing what you're doing, and let's see how fast you get socially destroyed." Brooke stopped laughing and glared at me. "You think your empty threats scare me? Monica, I've known you for two years. You're a weak coward. What could you possibly do?" She yawned and slumped back onto her pillow. "Whatever. I'm not wasting my breath on you losers. My man is waiting for me." She pulled out her phone, and the screen lit up with an active call. "Babe... are you there? My roommates are picking on me again..." Her boyfriend's rough voice blasted through the speaker. "Damn, those bitter virgins again? Baby, just wait. Once I come over to your campus, I'll teach those miserable sluts a real lesson." "Oh, don't be so aggressive, babe. They're just jealous. Ignore them. Tell me, did you miss me today?" On the bed next to mine, Pathy sat up abruptly, ready to unleash a flood of curses. I put a hand on her arm and shook my head. "Tonight is the last time she gets to act like a queen." When morning came, I headed straight for the radio station. 2 At the bottom of the equipment cabinet in the station room lay a pile of retired cables, broken audio jacks, and old CD players. Underneath it all sat a cardboard box with a faded label: Outdoor Event Broadcast Gear—Decommissioned. I had stumbled upon this box while cleaning the storage room last month. The model was outdated, but every component worked perfectly. I pulled out my phone, switched on Bluetooth, and located the transmitter signal. I played a song as a test and turned on the station monitor speaker. The music flowed through clear and crisp, without static or interruption. Signal rock solid. That was all I needed. When I returned to the dorm, voices were already drifting through the cracked door. "Don't you think she's mentally ill?" Brooke was on the phone, her voice so loud it echoed down the hallway. "So what if I talk to my boyfriend? It's my personal freedom! Those three act like total psychos, giving me dirty looks every single day. I don't owe them anything!" "She even threatened me last night, saying she'd get me socially ruined. You know what she claimed? That she'd patch my calls into the school broadcast system! I almost died laughing! She's a microchip student. When her laptop broke last month, she had to ask an IT guy to fix it, and now she brags about hacking!" Her online boyfriend chuckled over the line. "Did she really say that? Broadcasting our private talk to the whole university? Sounds kinda hot." "Hot my ass," Brooke sneered. "She's all talk. I know Monica inside out. She complains every day, and has anything ever happened to me? Weak losers stay weak forever!" "And that girl Pathy? Built like a fire hydrant, but her temper is worse than a guy's! Don't even get me started on Brenda. Scruffy and pale like she just crawled out of a storm drain! The three of them can't get a man to save their lives, so they just grind over textbooks like mindless robots. Hahaha, total freaks!" I pushed the door open. Brooke glanced at me without the slightest hint of embarrassment. Instead, she cranked the speaker volume up another notch. "Babe... my roomie is back to play third wheel again..." I ignored her baby voice, put on my noise-canceling headphones, and opened my textbook. Brooke kept trying to get a reaction out of me. "If you want to read, go to the library! Don't sit here acting like a buzzkill! Since you love studying so much, why don't you sleep in the library? Save yourself the walk." "I'm serious. Since all three of you hate my guts, why don't you move out? I'd get a whole four-person room to myself. So spacious! Then my boyfriend could come stay over whenever he wants." I pulled off one headphone and looked her dead in the eye. "If you pay for our housing fees, we'll pack up and leave right now. If you can't afford it, shut your mouth." She didn't expect me to snap back, stumbling for words. Her boyfriend chimed in through the speaker. "Who's that? The pimple-faced one you mentioned?" "Yeah, that's her. Ugly face, huge attitude," Brooke told her phone while staring at me. "Telling you to shut up? Who the hell does she think she is? When I get some free time, I'll pop by your campus and see if she keeps that big mouth open!" The guy sounded like a uneducated thug from a sketchy street gang. I couldn't fathom how Brooke, a college student, could fall for a loser like him. "Sorry to break it to you, but our campus doesn't just let any random trash walk in. Stick to working your factory shift so you can afford your cheap beer," I said calmly. A single effortless line, and her boyfriend completely lost his temper, screaming obscenities through the speaker. I put my headphones back on and tuned them out. Winning a petty verbal spat meant nothing. Tonight, Brooke would learn what real consequences felt like. 3 By evening, Pathy and Brenda returned to the dorm one after another. Pathy slammed her backpack onto her desk and collapsed into her chair. "Professor Vance's lecture today wasn't a class. It was a weaponized lullaby." "Didn't sleep well?" I asked. "What do you think?" she shot back. Nobody in our room had slept well. Being forced to listen to someone else's dirty late-night routine at two in the morning would ruin anyone's sleep schedule. Dark circles hung heavy beneath Pathy's eyes. Brenda stayed silent, her eyes red and puffy. She opened her planner, which was packed with dense notes tracking her packed schedule. Up at six-thirty, library by seven, four tough engineering lectures during the day, followed by an online mock exam at night. She was the top student in our room and worked harder than anyone. Freshman year, she ranked third in the entire department. But this year, thanks to Brooke's constant late-night noise, she barely managed to stay in the top ten. All of us, including Brooke, knew why Brenda worked so hard. Her parents were disabled, living off small disability checks. It had taken her entire family three full years to save up enough money for her college tuition. Every time her parents called, they always reminded her, "Focus on your studies, darling. Don't starve yourself. If you run short on cash, we'll find a way." Every time she hung up, she cried silently, wiped her tears, and went back to solving equations. On nights like these, what she needed was proper rest, not being woken up at midnight by Brooke's shameless groans. "Brenda, after tonight, you'll finally get a good night's sleep," I whispered, comforting her. She rubbed her eyes. "Will your plan really work?" I unlocked my desk drawer and pulled out a palm-sized black transmitter. "The receiver is already wired into the main mixer in the radio station. The main fader is turned down right now, so it's silent." "When Brooke makes her phone call tonight, her audio signal will transmit directly to the radio room. Then, every speaker across campus will blast her voice." "The academic buildings, the dining hall, the track field, the dorm entrances, the security booth, the main administration lobby. Everyone will know exactly who she is." Pathy let out a sharp laugh. "If she still has the nerve to bother us after that, her skin must be thicker than concrete!" Brenda thought for a moment, then raised a crucial question. "What if someone is working at the radio station tonight?" "Nobody will be there. The evening broadcast show is paused for a format overhaul starting this week. The radio room is completely empty at night." "And after it starts playing?" Brenda pressed on. "Won't someone run over to shut it down? Will we accomplish what we want?" "Don't worry. The radio room is on the top floor of the furthest academic building. The doors are locked at night. Running over there and unlocking the system will take at least fifteen minutes. That's more than enough time to make Brooke a legend." Pathy clapped her hands softly. "The stage is set. We're just waiting for the trash to perform." Right as the words left her mouth, Brooke pushed the door open, fresh out of the shower. 4 "Who are you calling trash?" Brooke glared at us, clutching her towel. I glanced at her sideways. "Why? Are you applying for the title?" Pathy snickered. "Speak of the devil!" Even Brenda, usually quiet and timid, joined in. "Don't be so sensitive, Brooke. Nobody named you." Brooke's face flushed red with anger. With three of us united, she couldn't win a verbal fight. So she resorted to her favorite tactic to irritate us. Setting her phone on the nightstand, she dialed her boyfriend's number on speaker. "Babe... I'm putting on my body lotion... Too bad you can't smell it... Such a shame..." "My roommates? Oh, they're all here, pretending to read their stupid books!" "I'm telling you, they just called me trash. I didn't bother arguing with them. Lowering myself to their level is so tacky!" "All they do is study! Look at Pathy's face, built like a fire hydrant! What's the point of reading all those books when no guy will ever marry her?" Hearing this, the three of us exchanged a knowing smile. Only a shallow, insecure girl would measure a woman's entire worth by her physical looks and marriage potential. Each of us had real goals worth striving for. Pathy scored second in the latest department mock exam and had a strong shot at a direct master's program. If Brenda climbed back into the top three, she wouldn't just secure a master's spot; she would swim in full-ride graduate fellowships! As for me, Brooke had no idea that my family owned one of the top microchip manufacturing enterprises in the country. I chose this grueling major to master the core technology before taking over the family business. Both Pathy and Brenda were future core talents I planned to recruit for my company. And even setting all that aside, without heavy makeup, any of us looked miles better than Brooke with her thick layer of cheap foundation. Her unearned confidence stemmed entirely from acting cheap, attracting swarms of low-life guys who fed her ego with meaningless compliments. At eight-thirty, Brooke finally wrapped up her call. She climbed down her bed ladder and started aggressively rummaging through the wardrobe. "Where is my black mini skirt? The one I bought at the mall last week. Did one of you steal it?" Nobody paid her any mind. She stomped over to Brenda's closet and pulled it open. Out of the three of us, she picked on Brenda the most because Brenda seemed gentle and weak. Brenda moved to stop her, but Brooke shoved her back hard. "I'm looking for my clothes! Did you steal it? What are you panicking for?" Pathy couldn't stand it anymore and leaped down from her bed to back Brenda up. While the two of them blocked Brooke, I walked straight to Brooke's wardrobe, grabbed a handful of her clothes, and dumped them onto the floor. "Is finding a skirt really that hard? There. Much easier now, right?" Her black mini skirt sat right there in plain sight on the top shelf. She had been staging a scene on purpose. Brooke's face turned beet red. She couldn't physically fight all three of us at once. She snatched the skirt off the floor and held it against her waist. "My boyfriend is coming to visit me this weekend! Just wait until he gets here, you're all going to pay!" "He said we should book a hotel room downtown, but I don't see why we should waste money. Why don't you three spend the night at the library and leave the room to us?" "If you do that, maybe my boyfriend will cool off and spare you!" It was a pathetic, low-class threat. None of us bothered answering. We simply climbed back into our beds to rest. Brooke scoffed loudly. "Ungrateful snobs!" Under my blanket, I brought up the remote control interface for the radio station transmitter on my phone, confirming that the receiver indicator light was solid green. Lights-out time arrived. The room fell into pitch darkness. Only Brooke's bed remained illuminated by the bright white glow of her phone screen. Brooke's voice cut through the dark night, loud and shameless. "Babe... what are we talking about tonight? I'm in a bad mood... I need something extra naughty..."