short stories

windows

"Yeah, what's up?"

"Did you hear Chase Atlantic's new song?" Marie's jaw dropped as she pressed the phone to her ear with her shoulder and began to type into youtube.

"No fucking way-"

"Molly- listen, it's fir-"

"Bye," Marie said quickly, ending the call with her laughing best friend. She grumbled a fuck to herself as she played the song out loud, the music filling her room.

"Dude turn that dow-" her brother yelled from the room over.

"Shut up!"

She grinned listening to the song through, smiling as wide as ever as she read through the lyrics. Wanting to scream at herself for missing the release, she listened again and again. She rested her head against the wall, head titled up as she stared at the ceiling.

And just to further appreciate her favourite band that night, she played her playlist of their music. Smiling wide, she laid in bed, chemistry homework forgotten as she bathed in the music.

"Rie?"

Her eyes opened to see her mother at her room door, poking her head in. "Can you turn that down, honey, you woke up your little sister."

"Oh!" Marie gasped, lowering the sound of her music. "I'm sorry," she said quickly. Her mom smiled.

"To bed soon, okay?" the sixteen-year-old pointed at her chemistry textbook.

"Once I'm done." Her mom nodded and she shut the door, leaving. Marie sighed, looking around her room for her headphones.

Plugging them in, she wondered if her neighbours could hear. Sure, her room was on the side of the building with windows, no other walls on the other side leading to another unit. And they did live on the end, three sides of their apartment covered in windows.

Sighing, she went straight back to her chemistry homework, working through the dozens of problems she still had to do.

Going back to Molly, she shook her head, looking out her window. She smiled as she pushed the blinds to watch them sway a bit. She and her sister Matilda had broken them while playing hide and seek a few months back, and her family really wasn't in the place to replace them, or get them fixed properly.

Maybe living in a three-bedroom apartment with her parents and handful of siblings wasn't ideal for a teenage girl like Marie. But she loved her family, despite the arguments that arose from time to time. And she had her own room, which she knew she'd have to share with her youngest sister in a few years, but for now, she was perfectly contennt with what she had.

She looked up out the window. It was getting dark now and the lights were still on in her neighbour's homes, a few rooms around her's lights still having been on. She looked up at the window directly above and diagonals to hers. As always, the light was on. She sighed.

They never turned those lights off. And sure, they didnt have to pay an electricity bill in the building, just one bill a month that covers everything. But that didn't mean that they had to waste electricity every day.

She shook her head, pulling her textbook back ot her lap. Maybe working on her bed wasn't such a good idea.

And she learned so when she fell asleep, textbook in her arms, homework incomplete.

---

"I didn't do it," she mumbled. "I'm sorry."

"What happened?" Ms. Fargo asked. "You always do your work, Marie."