Next Door

When I left the last parcel in the middle of the living room, I was a little angry and a little proud. I was angry because I had to do everything on my own, I didn't even have a friend to send me a message of support. Because of one wrong word, I had lost everything I had, I had to choose between two evils and I ended up in a forgotten apartment that resembled a rat hole, a person that everyone hated. I could hear the sound of an electric guitar in the silence as I threw myself on the couch, which had not yet been stripped of its plastic. The apartment building I moved into was a new building, but because of the election protests that had taken place just six months earlier, the neighborhood had become very chaotic, most of the people had moved out, leaving only good people with no money and completely bad people. As one of those bad people, I had bought the best house I could afford with the compensation the company gave me, a new apartment in a run-down neighborhood. There was no one else in the apartment except me, my neighbor in the apartment next to mine, whom I didn't know, but I heard music, and a group of students living in a two-story apartment on the first floor. While I was being lynched on Twitter, i********:, t****k and even f*******: as a despicable woman who slept with her bandmate's boyfriend, I couldn't just turn tail and crawl among them with the paltry compensation I received. I tried not to make eye contact with my lit-up phone, I hadn't become popular enough to turn off notifications, but after this incident, both the group and I had a momentum that went against the statistics. People were adding me just to insult me, harassing me with fake links saying that my revelation had been viewed. The majority were furious with me and embraced the couple back together no matter what. They didn't know. They didn't know that I bought drugs for my brother that night and they never will. That man... No one knew that the man they praised so highly, the scumbag who played the victimized Romeo, was a drug dealer with balls. And those who knew were covering up the crime with me and stepping on me. I got up from my seat with the pressure I felt under my ribs and groped through the parcels to find my bag and took out my card holder. I left the house with the house key. I lived on the fourteenth floor and there was no elevator because the construction of the house was almost finished. The bright white stairs leading down were full of dust, mud and other filth. The lobby at the entrance was just as dusty as the stairs. Of the two tiers of doors, the outermost one was full of cracks, the cameras that monitored the outside of the house had been stolen, and there were nonsensical love quotes, names, swear words and insults written on the outside of the apartment building. The bottom shop floor had become a home for the homeless. I pulled the hat of my cardigan over my head and zipped it up, walking with difficulty on the broken sidewalks that the municipality didn't bother to build. I didn't want to go home and gnaw my nails over a beer, pass out listening to music with headphones in my ears and never wake up again. I couldn't give up on my brother, he was the only person who had ever protected me and supported me in everything. He was a great help in the formation of my band, sharing our music on the internet and signing with our agency, he was always a bridge for us. "Be patient," he told me. He held my head tightly and said, "I will soon get you out of this trouble, until then keep quiet," he told me many times. I had no choice but to believe him and wait. My brother was the only person who could help me. When I walked into the liquor store, the man who had disappeared behind the counter raised his head, looked at my face and lowered it back down. I could tell from the announcer's voice filling the room that he was watching a soccer match. It was a small, rectangular store. Behind the entrance door stood the cash register. Behind the cash register were expensive brands of liquor. To the right of the door was an aisle of biscuits, teas and other items. In the center and near the cash register were tables for betting, but I didn't think they would be open for personal use. I walked straight to the drinks cabinet and grabbed twelve beers. I didn't think it would be enough, so I took a liter of Coke from the drinks cabinet and was going to mix it with the whiskey I was going to buy behind the counter. "I can see what you're doing," I heard the man's voice say as I tucked it under my arm and looked for salty, shelled peanuts among the nuts. It was quiet inside. When I looked around to see who he was talking to, there was no one there but me. I didn't care. I couldn't find salted and shelled peanuts, so I resorted to buying fried peanuts. As I stood up, the man was standing over me. He was about my height, thin and bearded. As I sat up, he looked me up and down, especially noting the beers under my arms and in my pockets. "You'll pay for them, won't you?" he grunted. I turned and looked at the beers overflowing from my pockets "If I was going to steal, it wouldn't be like this," I grumbled and put my hands down hard on the cash register. I reached over and grabbed the black bag on the counter and grunted "As many as you counted," I grumbled as I filled the beers in my pockets. The man looked at me again as he chewed his gum with exaggerated gusto and scanned the drinks. I left the card on the counter and continued to fill up my groceries. "Come back again," the man sneered behind me as I left the store with my contactless payment card. I rolled my eyes at him and without even looking back, I walked home along the broken roads I had come from, along the side of the highway. It rose like a shining star among the ramshackle apartment buildings, but anyone who saw it from below would never have guessed that anyone lived in it. The lower floors had been demolished, and on the side facing the highway beggars and junkies were gathered around a fire, some eating and some drinking beer. I was angry that I had to live among people who didn't know me. I walked angrily towards the apartment building. I swiped my card in the card reader at both doors and let myself in. I was red from my cheeks to my ears with anger. I wanted to break something, to dig my nails into it or smash it. By the time I reached the fifth floor, my jaw was numb from clenching, my not-so-athletic legs were tired and my eyes were so misty from the tears I was holding back that I could no longer see. I collapsed on the stairs and as I pulled out a beer bottle, I questioned for a moment why I had bought the Coke. Yes, I was going to buy myself a whiskey, but damn it, I had forgotten. When I remembered that, the tears couldn't hold back anymore and rolled down my cheeks. I knew I didn't deserve this. I had come up with the name of the band, I had written all the songs and I had composed all the songs. They couldn't write me off so easily. They shouldn't have. I unscrewed the lid of the can of beer I was nibbling on and drank it all in one go, not caring that it ran down my chin. I was still out of breath, so the beer squeezed me even tighter. I squeezed the can between my fingers and started climbing the stairs again, slowly. On the eleventh floor I could slowly hear the music. The song he was listening to on the thirteenth floor had ended and a new song had started. The sound of the guitar, the drums in the background, was the introduction to the song I was singing over and over again. It was one of my favorite songs. It was a song that got us on our feet, made us popular and everyone loved it. When I got to our floor, I was shouting "I fell!" in the song. As I stood in front of my own door, waiting to put my key in the lock, I was aware of how shaky my hands were. I couldn't help myself and I walked straight to my neighbor's apartment, one row next to me, and started banging on the door. The music got louder and louder as I pounded on the door, this was the rising phase and I remembered how much I was getting the audience pumped up by shouting "I fell!" louder and louder. I counted 3-2-1 in my head. "I fell," I cursed in a whisper that drowned out the echo of footsteps in the hallway, "Blood dripping from my knees/ Don't hold my hands if you're going to let go again," I murmured tearfully. As the sighs between the melodies kept pace with the notes, the door opened. In front of me stood a naked, almost completely soaked man with only a towel around his waist. His dark hair fell over his forehead and his green eyes shone angrily through wet lashes. With one hand still holding the army green towel around his waist, the rap part of the music started. "Can you turn the music down?" I asked through clenched teeth as he reached for something on the door, every muscle in his arms, chest and stomach contracting one by one as he pulled his waist out of the towel. When he flipped the switches, the house was plunged into total darkness and the music was faintly audible. "What did you say?" he asked roughly. "I moved in next door and your music is too loud. If you pay attention to how loud your music is when you listen to it at this time of the night...-" I hadn't even finished my sentence when the door slammed in my face and I was left where I was. As I pounded on the door again and again, another song started playing, this time louder. I left the empty beer can in front of his door and went back to my apartment and slammed the door shut. I threw myself directly onto the balcony with the bags in my hand, sat on the balcony that was as filthy as the outside, drank all night and listened to the music coming from the side. I got angry. The angrier I got, the more I cried and the more I cried, the more I drank.