5. 5
5
T he few quiet nights I had were nice while they lasted.
I’m thrown from a deep sleep at two in the morning by a shaking, vibrating feeling I do not understand. I refuse to open my eyes right away, listening and feeling for an explanation. There’s a pattern to it, a rhythm. Something that makes the muscles in my neck want to nod along to it.
It’s music.
I rip out an earplug to an attack of it. A loud, bass heavy song, with deep and guttural screaming. If I were hearing it in any other context, I’d probably try to figure out what the song is so I can listen to it when I’m feeling angsty in my car later.
In this context, it makes me want to rip my hair out. Or someone else’s hair, preferably.
Like the monster who thought this was a good time to be playing it.
It’s so loud that the speaker might as well be right inside my room. It’s impressive considering there is a hallway and another bedroom between me and the wall I share with the guilty apartment.
I’m in disbelief that this is happening after having just gotten rid of my problem. I don’t want to move out of this apartment, but I might have to. What choice do I have? I’m obviously cursed to be kept up at all hours of the night if I stay here.
I sit up, my eyes wide and vacant. I honestly feel so absolutely out of my mind, the desire to sleep through the night weighing on me so heavily. The desire to will away what’s happening again engulfs my every cell.
No. This is not how this is going to go. I will not let it.
I throw a robe over my half naked body, and storm out of my front door. I don’t have the ability to think better of it with the music pushing away any possible rational thought.
My fist raps into the door, as heavy as I can make it. My foot taps impatiently while I wait.
I think I can see said door actually vibrating with the volume. It’s both impressive and infuriating.
I knock again. I can’t hear anything else inside, no evidence of humans, for obvious reasons. I hate that it means Pierre’s kid won’t hear me out here, no matter how long I stand my ground and wait.
I knock one final time, just hard enough to let out a tiny bit of my frustration. The tiniest bit.
I stomp back into my apartment, wishing I had a better outlet.
My head is starting to throb, and the early hour has tears filling my eyes. I want to be asleep. I want to never deal without another stupid loud neighbor. It’s not fair.
It’s completely fucked.
I aggressively pull open my junk drawer, where I find a pen and a pad of paper. While the stationary with Disney characters on it might dull the effect of my very serious words, I know it’s all I have. There’s no point in looking anywhere else.
To whom it may concern,
The music coming from your apartment is extremely loud for the time of night (or should I say morning) you choose to play it.
It would be lovely if you could keep it between the hours of 9am and 10pm as our rental agreement suggests. Thanks!
Sincerely,
Your very tired neighbor.
In the same drawer, I find an almost-empty roll of tape and rip off a small piece. Just enough to allow me to stick it right where they’ll see it tomorrow. I think I did my best to keep my current mood out of it, so I’m hoping they’ll be reasonable in the morning. I’m hoping they appreciate that I wrote a letter instead of immediately reporting them to Tim.
Or calling the cops, do people do that? It feels extreme, but not more so than my foul mood.
When I end up back in bed, the loud music still blaring, my eyes start to water. With frustrated, ragged breaths shaking my entire body, I put my earplugs back in, and bury myself under my pillows.
As you clearly said, those hours are a suggestion.
I will continue to play my music when it best suits me.
While we’re looking over the rental agreement, I thought I might add that it also says to keep the outside of the building free of debris. You’re one to talk with the cemetery of plants I have to stare at every time I come home.
Sincerely,
Your neighbor who doesn’t care.
Okay, what a bitch . I could’ve been so much meaner in my letter.
Who would be that stubborn? That rude? Especially when they’ve been made aware that they’re keeping their neighbor up at night? Their neighbor with a kid, might I add. It’s so inconsiderate and selfish, and has me thinking maybe she’s eighteen too. I can’t imagine a grown adult writing these words.
Also, my plants aren’t dead. Sure they look a little sad when I forget to water them for a few days, but they’re going to perk back up now that they’re rehydrated. She’s going to eat her words.
On my way out for work, I stick another note on her door.
Maybe this is your first time living on your own, but a signed rental agreement isn’t just a suggestion. Especially when your neighbors have children, and/or jobs, and require sleep at night. Which we all do.
Also, see plants. Not dead. They were taking a nap.
I can not live without adequate sleep. I become an entirely different, very irritable and upset person. On those work days I’m not the cool manager. I’m not the cool anything. I keep my mouth shut, and my movements slow, and hope no one does anything to piss me off.
I hate being that person. I hate being angry or grumpy or anything of the sort. Most people around me would describe me as upbeat and full of energy. That’s what my standard setting looks like, and I like my standard.
As I lay in bed for the fourth night in a row with screaming ringing in my ears through my foam earplugs, I start crying. Hard . I tried knocking on their door again last night, but it was no use.
I’m so angry at the world. I’m so unbelievably angry at my new neighbor. I’m even angry at Tim for being so terrible at picking which people live next to me. I’m angry that if nothing changes, I have to move.
It’s going to be so overwhelming to figure out, but so necessary. I can’t live like this.
I keep thinking there’s no way they’ll keep this up, surely someone else will complain and get them to stop, but then they don’t. I don’t know exactly what’s keeping me from filing a noise complaint. Maybe the fact that the last neighbors were just kids, and I didn’t want to traumatize them by having the cops show up at their door. I still have no idea who I’m dealing with here, I don’t think I’d be so hesitant if I did.
The worst nights when the boys lived there would send me to sleep at my parents house, or even in my car. The latter only worked when Dahlia wasn’t home, and the weather wasn’t freezing. But it helped. I slept, despite the pain I’d be in when I woke up. They obviously don’t make backseats with comfortable sleeping in mind.
Yet still, I preferred to inconvenience myself rather than them. I did vent to Tim a few times, and I know he had some conversations, but he’s a big softie. He didn’t change anything.
I hate that my girl’s not even here on a night she should be because of this crap, I hate that I’m inconveniencing her . The next thing I know, she’s going to start preferring it over at her dad’s house because she gets to sleep peacefully.
The boy’s noise was one thing, but this wouldn’t work. There’s no way she could ignore this volume.
I wouldn’t be able to blame her. I’d be sad, but I’d get it. Hell, even I would sleep at Caleb’s house if it meant nothing interrupted me from the hours of ten to eight.
When I focus on my heartrate in hopes to calm it down, I just remind myself why I’m so worked up, and it works me up even more.
I’ll talk to Tim in the morning, the guy loves me. If he sees just how upset I am, he’ll do something about it. I think. I hope.
If he doesn’t, then I’ll start apartment hunting. I wish I could say I’d house hunt, it would get rid of the noise problems, but the market is ridiculous right now. I don’t stand a chance.
I make a game plan while I’m lying there, because what else can I do? My heart is racing so aggressively fast that sleep is impossible. I’ll tell my parents I’m staying with them in the meantime. They won’t mind, because they’re always complaining they don’t see us enough. Maybe I could even move back in for a while, as defeating as that would feel. It would take some of the stress off.
And it’s not like a ton is going on in my life that I need my own private space for. I’d just go from being unfortunately single, to circumstantially single.
I start to text Caleb, not caring about the late hour, to ask if he can keep Dahlia another night. My teeth grind the entire time I type, and when I realize just how badly, I erase the message.
No. We’ll stay with my parents tomorrow night. That way, regardless of what happens, we both get our sleep, and I don’t have to miss her anymore.
My mind full of possibilities keeps on chugging until finally the music stops. I open my eyes to see morning light spilling into my bedroom, and tears build up in my eyes. An entire wasted night is about to turn into an entire wasted day.
I do decide to text Caleb now, but only to ask him what time I should pick up Dahlia. When he doesn’t respond within the first two minutes, I roll over while pulling my blanket over my head. Might as well take advantage of a morning nap if that’s all I’m going to be able to get.
2:37 PM
I blink down at my blurry phone, and the locked screen full of notification banners. That was some nap I just took.
But such a necessary one , I think as I let out a huge yawn.
I missed my Tim window, because he never hangs around here this late. Sometimes I wonder why he works from his office here at all, when he only has a few units and we’re all fairly low maintenance.
Not that I understand everything his job entails.
Most of the notifications are from Caleb, and I sigh as I open up our messages.
I quickly close them again when I realize he’s berating me for not getting back to him after my previous message. If only he knew how lucky he was to live in a house his parents paid for. To never have to deal with shared walls, or worry about where to go next.
He’s entitled and clueless, and probably won’t ever understand that. Not that it’s completely his fault, but it irks me just the same.
“I was supposed to work today, Reya.” That’s how he greets me when he answers the phone.
“I thought you would have taken care of that when I first asked if she could stay with you last night.”
“I had,” he grumbles. “Then you asked when you could pick her up, and I thought you were saying it was up to me to decide. I decided. I gave them a time I’d be in, and it’s now three hours past that.”
I roll my eyes, enjoying it less than when he can actually see it.
“I fell asleep after not getting a single minute of it last night. Forgive me for requiring that.”
“Then you shouldn’t have asked at all until you knew you’d be up,” he says.
“And then you’d complain about not hearing from me all day. I wouldn’t have done anything right either way. I’ll be there in twenty to pick her up.”
I go to hang up, but his next words stop me.
“Maybe you should make yourself comfortable with the idea of Raquel watching her sometimes. It would make things like this so much easier.”
My protective mom instincts lurch to the surface, and I practically growl into the phone like a wild animal.
“I’m never going to be comfortable with some random woman being responsible for my daughter, just like you wouldn’t if the roles were reversed here.”
“She’s not random,” he says with a raised voice, exposing his frustration. “Her and Lia get along great. The two of them would be just fine for a few hours.”
Oh, that stupid nickname they’ve come up with for her is not my favorite thing.
“You’ve probably already done it before, right? Just another thing I’m being lied to about?”
“Jesus, no. I haven’t. You act like I’m keeping all these secrets from you, but believe it or not, I want things to be smooth between us. I’m not trying to start an argument.”
“If you didn’t want to argue, you shouldn’t have convinced Dahlia to be a part of your scheming,” I tell him.
“It wasn’t scheming. It was two days!” he shouts.
The amount of time is news to me, but it’s irrelevant. It could've been two hours. He still lied.
“You’d lose your shit if I had her around some girlfriend you’ve never met, even if it was just for two days .”
“I’d trust your judgment,” he says, lowering his voice.
“Yeah, okay,” I say dismissively. I don’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth. “I’ll be there in twenty.”
I get my electric kettle started, so I can make a cup of tea on my way out the door. I brush through my hair with my fingers, which is longer than it’s been in years. I’ve always kept my curly mop of hair nice and short. I suppose it’s still considered short, but I canceled a haircut appointment a while back and never rescheduled. Now it’s almost down to my shoulders, and I’m liking it more and more every day. Especially now that I can put half of it up in a messy little bun, which is the look I go for today to hide the part that has fallen flat thanks to its time against my pillow.
I throw on some black pants that are just as loose and comfy as sweats, but look slightly less lazy. I pair it with a purple, skin tight, long sleeve tee. I’ll throw a coat over my arm, but I probably won’t wear it. I’ve become used to the bite of the cold on days like today.
Coats are strictly for wet weather.