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As I was washing my face and getting ready for bed, I was thinking that maybe it was a fluke, or maybe the second coffee was an anti-bad-day spell. Maybe the coffee spill was what we needed to break down the tension between us. Maybe my sticking up for myself showed him I’m not someone to fuck with. Maybe the coffee was a white flag.
But now it’s after midnight and my walls are shaking, the sounds of The Killers playing, “All the Things that I’ve Done” reverberating in my brainstem.
And while I love the Killers and can vibe with them on any other day, fury is brewing inside of me.
That’s because the sound isn’t coming from the store.
No, no, my kind, sweet neighbor who replaced my coffee after causing me to spill it is blasting his music which I can only assume is intentionally from right across the hall.
Ithasto be on purpose.
I thought maybe we had some kind of truce. That when I called him out, figuring out why he hates my guts so much, he saw the error of his ways. Maybe he had feltbadfor being such a dick once he realized I wasn’t some kind of stuck-up princess, that I had worked just as hard to get to where I am as he has.
But I guess not.
And now I’m lying here, trying to figure out what to do next.
I can’t just ignore this.
I need to go over there and ask him to quiet down.
Maybe . . . Maybe he doesn’t realize how loud he is like I didn’t that first morning. Since then, I’ve done my best to keep quiet.
Maybe he’ll do the same.
Checking myself in the mirror (I refuse to be caught in my pajamas again), my exhausted face stares back at me. My long hair is in a messy bun, but not in the effortlessly chic way Lilah does it—in the way that screams “stressed the fuck out.”
A pair of leggings that are worn out from too many washes but a new pair isn’t quite in the budget.
A white tank.
Fine. This will do.
At least I’m covered up this time.
Breathing deep to center myself, I open the door, stepping out onto the landing. If I thought the noise was loud inside my apartment, it’s about twice as loud here.
How is he not going deaf in there with that music blaring? I’m not saying I don’t like loud music. I do. But so loud that it’s creating permanent hearing damage? I’m good.
Still, I walk the three steps to his door and bang on it.
Hard.
He doesn’t answer.
I put my ear to the door, trying to see if I can hear anything in there, a guest or a visitor.
Instead, I just get a sense of ringing in my ear, it going a bit numb in the process.
I was going to be civil.
I was going to knock politely and ask him kindly, but now New Lola is back in place, standing up for herself once again. I start to bang on the door, pounding like I’m a police officer with a warrant.
I throw in a kick for good measure because the feeling of the bass on his fancy security door, much nicer than my own, makes me evenmoreannoyed.
There’s no way this is an accident.
What the fuck did I do to this man to deserve this?
