Meet Me Halfway(4)

It was a ripped piece of notebook paper. The little square of gray tape at the top indicating it’d probably been attached to my door before I so elegantly arrived.

Bending slowly, just in case anything jumped at me, I snatched it off my porch, holding it up to the light to read the chicken scratch.

Some of us are adults with jobs and need sleep. Be more considerate and turn down your music.





My face heated, and I glanced around anxiously. I didn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean someone wasn’t still out there. It’d only been a minute or two since I’d heard the knock. The someone obviously being the neighbor I shared a wall with.

Having only moved into the duplex a week ago, I still hadn’t met the person sharing the duplex with me, aka my wall neighbor. I’d caught a quick glimpse of a man sitting in the forest green Chevy Nova parked out front once, but that’d been it. I didn’t even know if anyone other than him lived there, or if he was actually the person living opposite me.

A sudden crunch to the left of the porch caught my attention, and I snapped my head to the side, squinting into the dark.

“Hello?” I called, clenching the note tighter in my hand and waiting, but I didn’t see or hear anything else.

Keeping my spine straight, I backed up, letting my rear push my propped door open so I could slip back inside without turning my back to the shadows.

I was embarrassed. I knew the set up for the other side of the duplex was likely the same, meaning my room would share a wall with the other master room, but I never really thought much about it. I certainly didn’t think my music was that loud. I had Jamie sleeping down the hall for God’s sake, I wasn’t blaring it.

I tried to brush it off. Neighbor man, or whoever lived there, was the one keeping himself awake by writing a damn letter and stalking over to my door in the middle of the night. Joke was on him.

Lost in thought, I fanned the paper back and forth, the motion chilling the large damp spot on my chest and making me shudder. I wiped at it subconsciously only to freeze when I grazed my nipple.

I looked down in horror, my eyes locking onto the hardened peak beneath my fingers. It was glaringly obvious through the wet fabric of my white sleep tank. Standing under my porch light, I might as well have had a neon arrow pointing right to it. Come one, come all, to the nipple show.

I groaned, my embarrassment hiking up to humiliation status. It was fine, no one had been out there. The sound I heard was either a cat or my irrational anxiety playing tricks on me. Probably the latter.

All I knew for sure was I was too tired for this shit. Frustrated, I slapped the paper onto the bar, the sound echoing out louder than I’d anticipated and setting off Rugsy’s insufferable yapping again.

“Shush! Lay down!” I whisper screamed, running down the short hallway. I’d barely opened my door and toed her body back when another door clicked open behind me.

“Mom?”

I sighed; at this rate I was never going to finish my assignment. “Sorry, bud, I know we’re making a racket. I’ll keep her quiet, I promise. Go back to bed.”

“What’s all over your shirt? Is someone here?” he asked, rubbing the heels of his palms into his eyes.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Besides the creature under your bed? Nope.”

He dropped his hands, glaring at me. “He’s not there anymore, I checked.” His voice was raspy with sleep.

The effort of keeping a smile off my face was a battle. “Oh? Where do you think he went? Maybe to find a kid with a little more meat on his bones?”

“No,” he said, stepping through his doorway. “I’m pretty sure I saw the clown in your shower drain eat him.”

Speechless, I stared at his closed door a moment longer. That was a visual that would stick with me for a while. Thank God I hadn’t planned on sleeping for a few more hours.

I’d made the mistake of telling him about the first horror film I’d ever watched and how I’d been at a sleepover and had to lay in a pitch-black room while the TV screen was off but the surround sound was on. I’d been forced to fall asleep listening to the sounds of kids screaming and dying. Fifteen years later, I still had nightmares about it.

Shuddering, I made my way back to my room, grabbing a t-shirt from my closet and replacing my nasty top. The remainder of my coffee was ice cold at this point, not to mention I’d have to study in silence now. Great.

I propped my pillows against the wall and snuggled back in, shaking my head when Rugsy instantly re-burrowed under the comforter at my feet. How she breathed way down there, I’d never know.

This was our routine every night, or at least every night Monday through Thursday. I’d enrolled in a local community college when I was around twenty, thinking I’d stay two years and come out with something to help me get a job. I’d received enough federal assistance to pay for it, so it could only help, right?

Three years and four associate degrees later, I was still waiting for it to help me land a full-time job rather than the part-time ones I currently had. My dream was to work directly with delinquent teens in a youth correctional facility, but instead I was stuck earning minimum wage making copies and serving food.

I’d graduated with a 4.0 GPA and had been so proud until the moment I’d realized no one else cared. If it wasn’t at least a bachelor’s, my GPA didn’t matter to employers. Period.