We finish our coffees, chatting about less catastrophic topics before the barista starts giving us the side-eye for camping at our table too long. Outside the café, we hug goodbye.
“Sorry I couldn’t be more help,” Claire says.
“No worries, I’ll figure something out.” I give her a final squeeze. “We’ll find a solution to both our predicaments.”
The drive home is quiet, just me and my thoughts and the occasional judgment from my GPS when I take the long way to avoid passing by my old apartment. All that worry throughout the day has left me exhausted.
The drive home takes twenty-five minutes. I drop my bag by the door and toe off my shoes. Chrissy isn’t home, probably off with Theo somewhere with hearts in her eyes. Mom is still at work, and Dad plays with Noah in the living room.
I go upstairs and plop onto my bed with a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos I scooped up in the pantry and the pile of math quizzes, hoping to distract myself with lopsided number sentences and backward fives. Nothing soothes an existential crisis like correcting six-year-olds’ arithmetic while staining your fingers neon red.
And it works—for about five minutes before a low, gentle guitar melody floats through the open window facing the neighbor’s house distracts me. I’ve never heard it before. It’s nice, pleasant, just what I needed to put me at ease after a day like today.
The new resident must be into folk music. Good taste, at least. I nod along absently, marking another quiz with a “Great Job” sticker.
But then the guitar grows louder, and faster, ramping up from soothing acoustic strumming to something with more urgency.The pleasant rhythm accelerates into a chaotic solo, fingers clearly flying across the fretboard with increasing aggression.
Then it stops for a moment and resumes with an electric guitar, the melody transforming into full-on sonic warfare, complete with screechy riffs that sound like someone trying to tune a banshee, which makes me wince and cover one ear.
And then the drums start out of nowhere—bam, bam,CLASH—and I jump out of my seat so hard I drop my red pen, which rolls across the papers and falls to the floor. Cheeto dust goes flying across my quizzes.
I wait there, thinking maybe it’ll stop before a thunderous bass line kicks in, rattling my window in its frame.
It doesn’t stop. In fact, it gets louder, as if someone’s cranking the volume with each passing measure.
Who plays drums at 5 p.m. on a weekday?!Whohas a full drum kit in a residential neighborhood anyway? This isn’t Woodstock. It’s a quiet, peaceful cul-de-sac full of elderly dog-walkers and retired dentists. Mrs. Abernathy across the street still complains when kids ride skateboards past her house, for heaven’s sake.
As I pick up my pen, another cymbal clash comes through the window, followed by a thud, like someone drop-kicking an amplifier.
That’s it, enough is enough.
I grab my sweater from the hanger and stomp out the door, brushing Cheeto dust from my fingers as I march down the stairs. I’m a reasonable person—I appreciate music more than most—but there’s a line, and Axl Rose Junior next door just power-slid right over it.
Dad looks up from building blocks with Noah. “Where are you—“
“Neighborly diplomacy,” I say over my shoulder, opening up the front door.
It’s time to give my new neighbor a piece of my very annoyed mind. Outside, I march with purpose toward the house that was peacefully empty this morning and is now apparently hosting Maplewood Springs’ least welcome garage band.
Chapter 7
As I approach my neighbor’s front porch, the drums finally—mercifully—go silent, but the heavy metal guitar ramps back up, wailing through the air like a banshee caught in a blender.
My teeth grind with each screeching note that wobbles off-key, and I shudder.
No rhythm. No structure. Just raw, chaotic noise that offends my eardrums.
I pause at the porch steps, glancing back at my house. Maybe I should just buy earplugs? Invest in noise-canceling headphones?
No. This man-made disaster deserves a confrontation. If I chicken out now, it might continue tomorrow, and the day after, and every day after that.
Who in their right mind subjects another person to this kind of acoustic torture? It’s like someone dropped a guitar down aflight of stairs and decided, “Yes,thisis the vibe for my next song.”
The porch steps creak beneath my shoes, interrupting my internal rant. The potted plants that Mrs. Parker once lovingly tended now sit empty and forgotten. No welcome mat. No porch swing.
I step up to the door and knock—polite, neighborly taps. Then I step back, arms folded, trying not to breathe fire. No answer.
Of course not. How could anyone hear a gentle knock over what sounds like a cat being strangled through an amplifier? The guitar wails higher, hitting notes that should be illegal in residential areas.
