Violet's POV
10B's door was dark wood, ordinary, aggressively normal-looking for a door that had caused me this much suffering. I stared at it for a moment, composing myself. Then I knocked.
Silence.
I knocked harder.
More silence, but louder, if that makes sense. The kind of silence that knows you're there.
"Hello?" My voice came out dangerously cold. "I know you're in there. Or maybe you're not. But I am standing here, and I have things to say, and I would really appreciate…" I knocked again, harder. "Come out. Right now. Right now."
Nothing.
I set my box down on the floor.
"Okay." I straightened up. "Okay, fine. You want to be invisible? Fantastic. Wonderful. Stay invisible." I pointed at the door. "But know this. I see you, 10B. I see you. You and your bass and your - your rotating roster of very loud women - you have cost me my job today. My job, and it is ALL YOUR FAULT…"
A door opened down the hall.
Mrs. Eden, my elderly neighbor who didn't have the misfortune of sharing a wall with 10B peered out. We made eye contact.
"He's not home, dear," she said pleasantly. "Usually isn't before eight."
I stared at her. "You know him?"
"Oh, I don't bother him," she said, and went back inside.
Right.
I stood in the hallway, chest heaving, and assessed my options. I could go home. I could eat something. I could begin the mature, adult process of updating my CV and processing my emotions in a healthy way.
Or.
I dug through my bag, found a receipt from Whole Foods and a pen. I pressed it against the wall and I wrote.
10B,
I don't know your name. What I DO know is that your nightly activities kept me up until 2am AGAIN, and I overslept, and I got FIRED today.
FIRED.
I have knocked on your door several times. I have called the landlord, who I'm convinced is a ghost. Nobody has done anything. So here we are.
I want you to leave this building. Immediately. Forever.
Until then, I genuinely hope your socks are mucky and smelly. I hope autocorrect ruins something important for you. I hope every shoe you watch gets cancelled on a cliffhanger. I hope she's faking it.
She's definitely faking it.
Sort yourself out.
10A.
P.S. Your music is not that deep. Stop.
I folded it. I slid it under his door.
Then I leaned close to the wood, one hand braced against it, and I said, very quietly, with absolute sincerity:
"I hope your WiFi disconnects every time you're at a crucial point in a video. I hope you get diagnosed with serious STIs. I hope all your lovers turn up to your doorstep pregnant, Mr. Horny."
I picked up my box and walked to my apartment - 10A. I let myself in, dropped everything on the floor, pulled my duvet off the bed, wrapped myself in it completely, and lay face-down on the couch.
I was going to stay here forever. This was my life now. A duvet burrito of failure.
**
My cousin, Maddy has a key because I love her, and I was beginning to regret that.
"Vi?" The door opened. A pause. "...Why is there a cactus in the hallway?"
"Sly needed air."
Another pause. Footsteps. Then the specific silence of someone taking in a scene - me, horizontal, fully cocooned, one hand dangling toward an already-empty glass of Malbec on the floor.
"Violet!"
"Don't."
"It's six-thirty in the evening and you're already drunk."
"Time is a construct."
She came around the couch and crouched down to my eye level, which I appreciated. She had her work badge still on, hair still neat. She looked really good.
"Talk," she said.
So I did. It came out in pieces - hiccups and half-sentences - and Maddy listened the way she always did, head tilted, expression filled with sympathy.
"And then," I said, sitting up now, duvet still around my shoulders like a cape, "and then I come home, and I go to his door, and I knock, and does he answer? Does he?"
Maddy sighed. "Mr. Horny?"
"Who else."
"Vi…"
"Who else, Maddy? Who else in this building is single-handedly dismantling my life one sleepless night at a time…"
"I told you." She sat back on the coffee table. "I told you, when he starts up, come downstairs to my place. My apartment is quiet, you can sleep, you can…"
"Oh, I know you told me." I pointed at her. "And I appreciate that. I do. But for how long, Maddy? How long do I tiptoe around this man's chaos? How long do I pack a bag at midnight like some kind of refugee in my own home?" I pulled the duvet tighter. "He should leave. He should be the one to leave. He's unstable. I'm…" hiccup… "I'm nottttt."
Maddy looked at the empty wine glass. Then at me. Then at some point on the wall where, I suspected, she was communicating silently with God.
"What do you want to do?" she asked carefully.
I was already standing. The duvet fell. I was a woman with a mission.
"I want to go out." I marched toward my wardrobe and threw both doors open. "I want to put on something that makes me look like I definitely still have my life together, and I want to go to a club, and I want to dance until my feet hurt and I forget that Fabian exists and that 10B exists and that any of this happened."
"Violet, you've been drinking since…"
"Maddy." I turned around holding a red dress. "Either help me pick shoes or get out of my way."
She looked at me for a long moment. Then she exhaled the exhale of a woman making peace with her evening plans, reached past me into the wardrobe, and pulled out the black one instead.
"The red makes you look angry," she said.
"I am angry."
"The black makes you look dangerous." She held it out. "There's a difference."
I took the black one.