Petal [h.s.]

TWENTY-THREE - LIKE I ACHE

Jessie had lost her damn mind.

She was furious about the music Arabella was playing. So furious that she was threatening her through our shared wall. I had to rush over and grab onto her, pulling her back from it. She wiggled out of my arms, elbowing me in the chest.

"Ouch! Would you stop it?! She does this all the time! She'll get tired of it and go to sleep!" I glared down at her, rubbing the spot she just elbowed me in.

"This is fucking ridiculous, don't be such a pussy!" Jessie snapped at me, moving back to the wall and slamming her fists against it, "Hey! Shut the fuck up!! We're trying to sleep over here!"

I probably would have laughed if this didn't feel like such a catastrophic event in my life. If it were anyone else on the other side of the wall, anyone but Arabella, I would be beyond amused with this. I rarely saw this side of Jessie-full of emotion, cussing up a storm, defending my right to sleep. But because it was Arabella on the receiving end, I was just embarrassed. I rubbed a hand down my face, watching Jessie as she slammed her fists against the wall again.

The music suddenly cut off, silence following.

She turned to look at me with a happy smile and I lifted my eyebrows at her, knowing that wasn't the end of it. She didn't know Arabella the way I knew her.

Jess turned back to face the wall and shouted again, "And you keep the music down or I'm going to call the fucking cops!"

I winced. That was definitely not the right move.

My smug little girlfriend thought that it worked. She turned back around and moved toward me with a grin, all proud of herself for what she did. I knew she thought that she was helping me, but she had no idea the type of damage she was actually doing. She was making my life much worse than it needed to be. Arabella would never let this go.

I heard something heavy collapse by the wall, but Jessie didn't seem to notice. I noticed every noise that came from Arabella's side of the wall.

She moved back over to me and wrapped her arms around my waist again, smiling up at me, "See? You just have to use a little force and-"

"FUCK THE POLICE COMIN' STRAIGHT FROM THE UNDERGROUND..."

The music was louder than I had ever heard it. So loud that Jessie jumped when she heard it start. I imagined the heavy thing I heard collapsing was a speaker, pressed right up against the wall. A laugh bubbled up in my chest at her song choice, my hand slapping over my mouth to try and stop it from coming out. But it was too late. I laughed.

Jessie's face was bright red.

"Why are you laughing?! This isn't funny, Harry!! Your neighbor is a cunty little delinquent!" She snapped at me, moving to grab her phone.

I laughed harder at her use of the word 'delinquent', but that only seemed to make things worse. She spun around to glare at me as she dialed a number on her phone.