My Bad Boy Neighbor (Now on Radish)

Episode 4

I couldn't sleep. Shortly after I said goodnight to Kai, I took a shower and hopped into my bed. Spending the next couple of hours tossing and turning, I couldn't bring myself to shut off my mind. Too many thoughts about Kai raced in my head as I replayed our latest conversations, feeling like an idiot in our interactions.

Kai didn't mention it but I felt like I was a moron, talking about crime novels and staring at him like some weirdo. This would probably be the last time he ever spoke to me. Connor and Matt were right. I was so lame. And the entire world knew it.

I couldn't stop overthinking things and the more I immersed myself into our conversations, the more details I added in my head, not knowing where reality begins and my imagination ends. The two of them somehow merged together.

It wasn't until I was emotionally burnt out that my brain shut itself off. Or at least it had the common sense to put my body in hibernation.

What felt like three seconds later, my alarm clock went off and startled me into starting my day off with a bang.

Literally.

I rolled over the edge of my bed and fell onto the cold, hard ground, hitting my head against the floor. Groaning and grunting, I sat up to turn that blasted sound off. I hated my alarm clock. If hell had an anthem, it would be a mashup of all the alarm clocks in the world and it would probably last for a few hours. Imagine having to stand through hours of alarm clock sounds... The only real cause of a migraine that my doctor would probably acknowledge.

Going through my morning routine, I put on a video in the background where I watched BookTubers go through their new book recommendations. A lot of the books mentioned were fairly new and I didn't have the chance to buy them yet.

I cleaned my face, got dressed, did my makeup and then went downstairs to make myself some tea and go through my notes for school. We didn't have any exams yet but I liked to be prepared. I also had two books in my bag which were not material for school and were solely there for entertainment purposes.

I was almost done going through the notes when my alarm clock rang again, notifying me that it was time for breakfast.

Halfway through my meal, I heard loud 'thump, thump, thump' noises nearing me. This could only mean one thing. My brother's footsteps got even more thunderous when he arrived to the kitchen. He barely bothered to glance my way but he did say hi, which was a record on a Connor scale.

"I have to hand in my essay for English tomorrow that you need to write for me," he notified me before he dove into another one of his excuses. "I have practice again today and a ton of homework to go through so the least you could do is help a brother out. It's not like you have a life."

I didn't enquire as to what the topic of his essay even was, hoping that if I didn't ask, he might forget about it. So I ignored his remark and watched him pour the last bit of orange juice from the bottle into a glass and then put the empty bottle back into the fridge like a psycho. He always did the same with the milk but with that one, he left two or three drops in just so he could use the excuse that we didn't actually run out of milk yet.

Once Connor gulped down that orange juice, he grabbed the keys of his car and left without a goodbye. The only thing of his left was the dirty glass sitting on the counter with a wet ring forming around its bottom where he spilled a little.

Sighing, I picked up the glass and cleaned up after him. Then I cleaned up after myself and returned to my notes. It would still be a while until the bus came and I was certain Kai was just messing with me yesterday. Either that or I was counting on him definitely changing his mind.