CHAPTER FIVE
KAYLAH
I’m seriously going to lose it.
I’m overthinking all the time. It’s not the best life approach I take, admittedly, but it’s something that comes naturally to me.
I can’t say I particularly like to be in my thoughts, but right now it’s better than being anywhere else for me.
I don’t have to make the gruelling attempt to travel anywhere for this.
If only it wasn’t being made so difficult by the insufferable prick that moved in a month ago.
It was bad enough having to come to terms with the fact that he’s my new roommate, but if that wasn’t torture enough his room just so happens to be directly under my room.
And he won’t let me forget it.
There’s probably only a few short minutes of the day that I can feel a semblance of…as much peace as someone like me can feel, because the sound coming from his room has briefly been put to rest.
The remaining minutes are filled with nothing but either his vapid music draining through the speakers and draining my life while it’s at it. And if that’s not cutting it for him, I’m blessed with catching up alongside him on whatever the hell is going on in the show or movie he’s watching.
Then just as soon as he’s done with that, it’s time for his phone call.
Which is exactly what’s happening right now.
I’m irritable. It’s been coming easily for me since the summer before university began least year, and since my antidepressants don’t seem to be working, I guess I just have to deal with it.
But I’ve been trying to keep in control of my actions, and starting what is probably unnecessary conflict seems like it could have long lasting effects that I just don’t have the energy for.
I’ve been telling myself that for weeks.
But now I’m starting to think this particular conflict might be necessary.
I’m feeling a headache creeping along, and it’s now hitting me that I’ve been granting this guy way more respect than he deserves, considering the fact that he’s not granting me any at all.
With that thought, I throw myself up off my bed and outside the room, not taking a minute to think this through as I march down the stairs.
I’m sure I could hear him on the phone from my room, but there was also the backdrop of a song that didn’t go unnoticed so I have no idea what I’m about to be walking into right now.
The only thing I do know is that as knock harshly on his door, I won’t be backing away from this until we come to an agreement that this nonsense is going to stop.
The irony of this situation being that his music is so loud he can’t hear me knocking on his door, is all I need to process before I’m twisting the door myself and preparing to see his infuriating face.
The door isn’t opening, of course. But that only causes me to bang even harder, with both hands this time, my patience growing thinner and thinner with each passing second.
I don’t know how long I do that for, but it feels like a lifetime has passed when his massive body appears beside his now opened door. “What the fuck?”
You took the words right out of my mouth,” I say.
“Huh? I would love to be as confused as he is. It seems fun to be able to irritate my roommate all day, and act like they’re the one inconveniencing me when they show up at my door. “What’s going on here?” he continues, and I’m lucky I can even hear him above the music he’s still playing.
“Do you have any idea why I’m here right now?”
He raises a brow. “Should I?”
“Do you?”
“No…” His eyes flick between studying me and looking around the hallway, but that confused look remains etched onto his features. Finally, he asks, “Do you need something?”
“Are you being serious right now?” I say.
“I’m not someone who jokes.”
I scoff, but his words don’t surprise me. “Wow, you really do have no idea why I’m here, do you?”
“Are you gonna tell me, or…”
“Do you just have like, no self awareness at all?”
With his narrowed eyes piercing into mine, he says, “I could ask you the same thing.”
“Sorry?”
He adjusts his position from leaning against the door to stranding straight, staring right at me. “Most people don’t like it when a stranger knocks on their door and still hasn’t told them why six years later.”
“There’s no need to be so dramatic, but what you doneed to do is turn that shit down.”
“What shit?”
“That shit.” I point inside his room, although I’m pretty sure it’s not at the right object.
“What shit?” he repeats.
“The shit you’re listening to!”
“My music, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a bit rude to call that shit.”
“Okay.”
“People work hard on that stuff.”
“Okay.”
“They wouldn’t like to hear someone call it shit.”
“Okay.”
“Respect people and their passions.”
“Okay.” But what the fuck?
“Glad we got that sorted.” He moves to close the door but I place my foot in its way.
“Turn it off, and then it’ll be sorted.”
“Yeah, I’m not gonna do that.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He looks bored as he says, “I’m not turning it off.”
“But I just asked you to.”
“No, you suggested that I turn that shit off, and I decided that I wouldn’t take your suggestion, but it also helped that the music I’m listening to isn’t shit, so it doesn’t even count.”
I love my height, but it’s moments like this that I’m grateful for it. I stand as straight as I possibly can, meeting his intense gaze with my own. He has no choice but to know that I won’t cower down to him, which I prove even more by saying, “Are you trying to piss me off?”
“Why would I ever do such a thing?”
“Is this because I stole your room?”
I don’t feel like pretending the way he is that he didn’t really want that room.
“I’m not a fucking child,” he says.
“Yet you’re acting like one.”
“You didn’t steal my room.”
“I kind of did, though, didn’t I?” I say.
I’m only really noticing his features for the first time.
They’re strong and striking, with a resting bitch face that could easily rival mine.
But that’s beside the point, so I continue with, “I steal your room, you then steal my eardrums, is that’s what’s going on here? ”
“I’m not turning my music off, get over it.”
He pulls the door forward again, but I nudge my foot against it even more to stop him.
“I need to think,” I say honestly.
“I’m not stopping you.”
“You’re being a prick. You know that, right?”
“I’ll cry myself to sleep tonight, don’t worry about it.”
I pinch my fingers in the space between my eyes as I close them. “Can you please just turn it off?”
“Can you please just get away from my door?”
“I will camp out here all night if I have to.”
“Great, enjoy the tunes.”
With a sigh, I open my mouth to speak again. “Turn. The. Fucking. Music. Off. Now.”
With his fingers gripping the door tightly, he says, “Get. Away. From. My. Door. Now.”
I’m saved from coming up with a retort to that by the ringing sound greeting us from behind him.
“Fuck,” he says without turning around.
“If you don’t want me to listen to your phone conversation you better turn the music off now so I can go back to a life where I don’t have to bother you to commit acts of basic human decency.”
He bears no emotion as he punctures me with his gaze once more, then walks over to his bed.
I watch as he picks the phone up and says, “Hey, Mum. How are you?”
It is genuinely one of my pet peeves for someone to have a phone conversation around. But this is a situation I can remove from, which would mean the problem would still persist.
At that conclusion, I stay put.
“I’m good,” he says. “What? Oh, that was just…you already know the answer to that, Mum. Of course it’s not.
No, it was just, um…my roommate. I don’t really know what she was saying, she was just talking outside my room, but not…
” He freezes. “What? Mum, why would you do that? We just live in the same house, we’re not friends.
Well, she’s not even here, so…” Our eyes meet again, and I instantly notice the panic in his.
“You’re right, I shouldn’t have lied to you,” he continues.
“Why do you need to speak to her when you don’t know her, do you know how weird that is, Mum?
” That would explain the panic that I’m also now experiencing.
“Is that why you called me, though? We should at least deal with that first. I told you I’ll talk to him when I’m ready.
No, you already know I don’t want that relationship.
” He paces the room as he speaks and curiosity creeps through me as to what he’s referring to.
“Um, I don’t even…I don’t even remember.
Mum, I don’t know her, why would I remember her name?
I’m a big man, I can protect myself if it comes down to it.
What? But I’m obviously not a serial killer, Mum, so why would she need to know my name?
How would that prove that I’m not a serial killer, though? ”
I don’t know why I’m still standing here.
Clearly, their conversation has taken a weird turn that I couldn’t have actually seen coming.
I mean, they’re talking about serial killers right now?
I would be concerned, especially if I didn’t know his name, but unlike him, I do remember him telling me his name was Julius.
I know there’s a chance there’s information about him that’s not but all I could gather from the search I did is that he’s a Hockey player.
Which was interesting to see. Because from the videos I’ve watched on the Wildern University website, he might be just as good as me.
I was going to be living with strangers no matter who I ended up with, and while my anxiety around this won’t go away, it helps for me to stay alert. It’s just one of the reasons I’m still standing in front of his door right now, refusing to go upstairs until he turns that music off.
Or until he hands me the phone while saying, “My mum wants to speak to you,” apparently.
But it’s too late to back out of this. And as I stare at the phone in his hand and come to the realisation that it’s not going to vanish before my very eyes, I have to question what the hell my life is.
“Um, I…” I begin, not knowing where I’m going with this at all.