Finally.
I spin around to see Mia lounging on the counter, elbow deep in a bag of my Doritos, her long, dark hair pulled into a messy bun. She stops chewing and holds the bag out to me, her fingers coated in bright orange dust. “Dorito?”
I roll my eyes and snatch the bag out of her hand.
“Seriously, Mia? What about now seems like a good time to start playing music?” I say as I roll the crinkly red bag back up, slamming it back onto my side of the snack shelf.
She swings her legs, calves hitting the cabinet underneath her. “I dunno. Got done with studying and the apartment seemed a little quiet.”
“That’s because it is three o’clock. In the morning. It’s supposed to be quiet.”
I watch as she smirks and hops down off the counter, her cool blue eyes giving me an amused once-over. “Why? You got somewhere to be tomorrow?”
I glare at her. “For your information, I have two Zoom classes.”
“Two Zoom classes,” she mimics, reaching out to tug at the two heather gray drawstrings of my sweatshirt until they’re perfectly even. The close proximity startles me for a second. Maybe two. Finally, I swat her hand away, my heart hammering angrily in my chest. “You do know you can just like…turn your camera off and sleep during those.”
“How are you not failing out of school? Isn’t your major molecular biology?”
“Because I stay up at night to study,” she says, motioning to the room around us, the edge of her right hand stained blue from her after-hours note taking. “Obviously.”
“Well, maybe if you studied during—”
She lets out a big, dramatic yawn, stretching loudly, the noise cutting me off midsentence. “Sorry, Allie. You know how much I love chatting with you, but I am just exhausted,” she says, like I’m the one keeping her up. “Think I’m gonna head to bed.”
You have got to be kidding me.
She slides past me and I watch as she saunters off down the hallway to her room, the very picture of innocence.
I stand there in shock, too angry to form a coherent sentence.
“You—I…”
“Night!” she calls from her doorway, giving me one more infuriating smirk before flicking on the light and disappearing inside.
“Stop eating my Doritos!” I manage to get out before the door clicks shut behind her.
Stop eating my Doritos. Really?
“That’s the best you could come up with, Allie?” I mutter to myself as I stomp back across the living room to my bedroom, determined to get at least a few more hours of sleep.
And to work on my comebacks.
—
I wake up the next morning feeling like crap.
My alarm blares noisily next to me for the fourth time, my phone tangled somewhere in my striped sheets. Flopping onto my side with a frustrated groan, I dig around to find it, the sound cutting out with a tap of the stop button. Even though my first Zoom class of the day is only ten minutes away, I burrow back into my warm comforter, wrapping myself up like a burrito. My eyes land on a Polaroid picture of my fluffy brown rescue dog, Jericho, his tongue lolling out as he keeps watch over the neighborhood from the front steps of my childhood home.
A sharp pain radiates across my chest, a wave of sadness and anxiety crashing into me as I stare at the familiar red brick house and worn black shutters just behind his squirrelly little head. Just like I’ve been doing for the past couple months, I push the unwanted feelings as far down as I can manage, and then flail out of my covers, angrily de-burritoing myself as I swing my legs over the side of my bed.
I set up my laptop and go to the bathroom before zipping into the kitchen to grab a bowl of cereal, the clock ticking closer and closer to class time. As I’m shutting the refrigerator door, I catch sight of the speaker on the counter.
I stick my head out of the kitchen to peer down the hall at Mia’s closed door before tiptoeing over to it. Flipping it over, I claw at the black battery cover, trying for a solid thirty seconds to get it to open.
“Come on…” I mutter, wincing as I nearly break a nail off, the tiny plastic door flying through the air and clattering noisily on the counter.
I smile to myself as I grab the two double-A batteries, pocket them, and quickly return the cover to the back of the—
“Morning,” a voice says from behind me.
I jump about a mile and whip around to see Mia opening a crinkly silver Pop-Tart wrapper, her chestnut-brown hair pulled into a low ponytail. “Oh, hi! Morning!” I say, way more chipper and friendly than I ever have to her.
She slowly takes a bite of the brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tart in her hand, narrowing her eyes suspiciously at me.
“I, uh…” My eyes dart down to the cereal bowl on the counter. I walk quickly over and scoop it up, walking backward out of the kitchen. “I gotta go…I have class…Zoom class…”
She raises one of her eyebrows at me as I scurry off to my room, slamming the door behind me.
“Could you be any more suspicious?” I mumble as I plunk into my swivel chair.
Class has already started by the time I realize I forgot to get a spoon.
And that Mia was eating one of my Pop-Tarts.
—
I wish I could say that taking the batteries out put an end to her middle-of-the-night kitchen DJing, but it absolutely did not. I do it every single morning for a week, a small pile forming in my top desk drawer, but it doesn’t make a difference.
I still get woken up at three in the freaking morning to the sound of overly autotuned vocals and a beat that belongs firmly in the club, not in my apartment hours before sunrise.
And every night, I storm out to see Mia, apparent owner of a lifetime supply
