Chapter Text
“This has been the longest week of my life,” Tessa laments into the phone as she’s leaving her last class on the second Friday of the fall semester, “I wish it was still summer.”
Her sister Jordan laughs on the other end of the line. “Tess, it’s only the end of the second week of class. I hate to tell you this, but you still have two more years of school, which means two more years of getting used to class after summer break. So, you better get used to it!”
“Thanks for the sisterly advice,” she grumbles, as she steps out of the building where her last class was. It’s August, so the sun is shining, although it’s currently being hidden by clouds. She can’t help but shiver when she passes through a bit of shade; the wind ruffles her hair, and a part of her wishes she had thought to bring a jacket.
“Hey, I’m just doing what I can to help,” Jordan responds brightly. “Why was this week so long?”
“Well, okay, you know my roommate, Jenny? She’s . . . interesting. Her boyfriend has been over every single night this week, and he doesn’t leave until midnight or so. It’s very irritating when I’m trying to study psych and I can hear them having sex in the other room.”
“Does she warn you, at least?”
“Jordan, if she warned me, I wouldn’t be there.”
“Fair enough.”
“Anyway, so not only do they have sex, like, a lot, they also fight all the time? I guess opposites can’t attract.”
“Why, are they complete opposites?” Jordan sounds genuinely curious.
Tessa shrugs, before she remembers that her sister can’t see her through the phone. “I think so. Jenny seems really sweet, if a little misguided. Lawrence, her boyfriend, on the other hand, is neither of those things. Not to judge, but I honestly don’t know why she’s dating him. He’s not the smartest, and he doesn’t treat her nicely at all. Last night, he set out a tub of ice cream to thaw, but then he forgot about it, so it melted all over our counter. Guess what, Jordan?”
She pauses for dramatic effect, and her sister doesn’t answer (not that she expects her to).
“He didn’t even clean it up! I came into the kitchen this morning to find Jenny scrubbing dried ice cream off the counter. We had to throw out, obviously, because ice cream is absolutely disgusting when it’s melted and refreezes.”
“Of course,” Jordan replies. “Tess, why don’t you just ask her about him? I’m sure there’s some sort of explanation as to why they’re dating.”
“There better be,” she grumbles, and then, despite the fact that the sun is shining, the clouds open up and it starts to rain. “Hey, sis, I’ll call you later. It just started to rain, and I’m not home yet.”
“Sounds good!” Jordan chirps before ending the call.
A few minutes later, Tessa can see her apartment building, but without an umbrella or a jacket, she’s very wet and very cold.
Her bag is overflowing with textbooks and papers, but she doesn’t notice that it rips open and all the contents spill out until it’s too late.
She doesn’t notice the fact that her psychology textbook is in a puddle until someone has stepped on it, leaving a muddy footprint and the pages even more soaked than they had been originally.
Tessa looks up from where she’s bent down to pick up the book, and all she sees is a beige coat and dark hair, walking in the direction she’d just come from.
“Hey!” she calls, but the man who stepped on it doesn’t even turn around, doesn’t even apologize.
Asshole, she thinks, as she scrambles to pick up all of her stuff. She throws the textbook in the dumpster before she even gets inside, making a mental note to go to the bookstore tomorrow to get a new one.
She opens the door to her apartment to see Jenny and her boyfriend, Lawrence, sitting on opposite ends of the couch, watching a movie.
“Hey,” Jenny greets in a bored tone when Tessa walks by the living room on her way to her room.
“Hi, Jenny; hey, Lawrence.”
If Tessa’s honest, she doesn’t think that she and Jenny are going to be particularly close. The girl that Tessa roomed with last year was going to be her roommate again, until that girl had decided last-minute that she was going to study abroad in Spain, leaving Tessa to scramble to find a roommate. Jenny was the only person to respond to her Facebook post, so the two of them agreed to live together more for convenience than anything else.
That being said, Jenny does seem like a really sweet person. She even looks it, too, with her platinum hair, and purple cat-eye glasses. Jenny is relatively short, which Tessa thinks is hilarious considering Lawrence is about a foot taller than his girlfriend.
“Yeah, I went to stay with my girlfriend,” he replies.
Tessa blinks slowly, confused. “Aren't you dating Jenny?”
“We’re in an open relationship,” Jenny emphasizes those last two words as if Tessa should know what that means, except she doesn’t look so happy about it.
“Only because you didn’t want to break up,” Lawrence snaps, and suddenly she understands why they’re sitting on opposite ends of the couch.
She also wishes she’d never asked at all.
“Yeah, well, sorry that I love you!” comes the snippy reply, which makes Tessa slowly back out of their living room and down the hall, to her bedroom.
She drops her bag on her bed with a sigh, deciding that she should probably get started on for that psych exam she has on Monday, so that she isn’t super stressed come Sunday night. So, she sits down at her desk, and turns on her laptop.
It’s only when Tessa goes to pull her textbook out of her bag that she realizes that she doesn’t have it.
Great, now I have to go buy the textbook now, instead of tomorrow. I bet it’s not going to rain tomorrow.
She sighs, pushes back her chair and stands up. She makes sure to grab her jacket and an umbrella before she leaves.
It doesn’t take her long to buy the textbook, but once she does, she’s so cold from the rain that she can hardly feel her fingers. She runs them under the faucet, flexes them a few times after she does, and it’s only then, 45 minutes after she originally sat down at her desk, that she starts her homework.
The sky has been dark for hours when she finally sets down her pencil the next day.
A glance at the clock tells her that it’s well after one-thirty in the morning. Suddenly her eyelids feel heavy, and all she wants to do is climb in bed.
She hears music blaring from the apartment next door, and she blinks, wondering if she’s so tired that she’s in that weird stage where she’s half-asleep while half-dreaming.
Not a dream.
And then the music gets louder. Someone yells, but the music doesn’t stop.
Tessa brushes her teeth and changes into her pajamas. Still blaring.
The clock edges towards two o’clock, so she resolves that if the music hasn’t stopped by then, she’s going to go over there and tell her neighbor to please stop –
This is ridiculous, she thinks bitterly, as she swears she sees the shared wall between her room and the one next door shake.
The door to her room creaks open. Jenny, sans glasses, pokes her head in, squinting.
“Sorry to bother you, Tess, but that music is too loud. Do you think you could turn it down?”
“It’s not me,” she replies gently, jerking her thumb in the direction of where the music is loudest, “Next door.”
“Oh.” Her roommate frowns. “Well, I hope they turn it down soon.”
Not likely.
“Yeah, I hope so, too, Jenny,” she says instead. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“See you.”
Tessa glances at the clock. 2:30, it blinks back at her, as she realizes that she told herself she’d go talk to her neighbors when it got to be two and she still hasn’t gone over there.
She must’ve fallen asleep.
Dammit.
With a sigh, she stands from her bed, makes sure to grab her key so that she can get back into the apartment before she heads to the neighbors.
She knocks twice and waits a few minutes before realizing that whoever’s blasting that music has probably fallen asleep.
Just as she’s turning to leave, the door opens.
“Can I help you?” comes a male voice, and she turns back around.
“Yes, actually. Will you please turn that music down? I’m pretty sure the whole apartment can hear it.”
“It’s not me, it’s my roommate, Scott. Trust me,” he says tells her with a tired laugh, “I’ve been trying to get my roommate to stop playing it, too. Nothing has worked. In fact, maybe you should take this up with him?”
Before Tessa can respond, he’s turned around.
“Scott!” he calls, and the music only gets louder.
“I’m Andrew,” he tells her quickly before he gestures for her to come inside; she’s not surprised to find that it looks exactly like a mirrored version her apartment, if a little messier.
“Tessa,” she replies.
Andrew maneuvers his way over to the second bedroom; the door is closed, but he knocks on it anyway. “Scott, buddy, open the door.”
The door opens to reveal a tall guy with dark, tousled hair and astonishing brown eyes.
He looks very, very familiar, and whatever sleepiness she felt before evaporates when their eyes me.
“Oh,” she says, upon seeing him, “it’s you.”
He – Scott – glowers at her, jaw clenched. “What are you doing in my apartment?”
“You two know each other?” Andrew asks.
“Unfortunately,” Tessa replies, her steely gaze not leaving Scott’s. “He stepped on my soaking-wet Psychology textbook and didn’t even apologize. I had to go buy a new one.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault that you dropped it in a puddle that I happened step in!”
“Dude, seriously?” Andrew questions, probably more to draw attention to the fact that he’s losing sleep over this than to agree with someone he just met.
“Wow,” she says after a moment, “you’re even more immature than I thought. Who likes stepping in every puddle they see? Are you 12, Scott?”
“I’m 21, actually, and last time I checked, it’s not very nice to break into someone’s apartment at two in the morning.”
“I was invited in here, thank you very much! Now, will you please turn down the music? It’s giving everyone in this building a headache.”
He squints at her as if trying to figure out if she’s lying or not. “You’re lying.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, now turn it off, please.”
Scott’s quiet for a moment, scratches his head as if he’s thinking really hard about what his answer is going to be.
“No,” he says, slowly. “Do you know what that means?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do!” Tessa yells.
He scoffs, running a hand through his hand. “Wow, deep.”
“I’m serious!”
“Are you? I can’t tell.”
She sighs sharply, crossing her arms over her chest, and chooses to ignore that comment. “Do you have to be playing music so loudly at 2:30 in the morning?”
“It’s a Saturday night, the night is still young.”
“Not to me, nor most of Canada. My roommate even asked if I could turn the music down.”
“Maybe your roommate should learn to sleep better.”
“Guys,” Andrew says nervously before Tessa can answer Scott, as the music blares behind the two of them. “Someone is definitely going to file a noise complaint if you don’t stop!”
Tessa sets her hands on her hips, determined. “I’ll leave when Scott turns down his music.”
“Not going to happen, princess,” Scott replies, leaning against the doorway to his room as he grins slyly.
“Don’t call me that!”
“I don’t know your name, so–”
“Let’s keep it that way,” she grumbles.
“–do you want me to call you ‘babe?’ ‘Sweetheart?’ Something . . . dirty? Some girls are into that, you know. With me.”
He winks at her.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Tessa counters.
“Oh, God, here we go,” Andrew mumbles, rubbing at his temples with his index fingers. Neither of them answers him.
Scott only laughs. “I don’t think I am.”
“Of course you don’t.”
He laughs louder, and she groans.
“I’ll file a noise complaint myself if you don’t turn this music down right now!” Tessa snaps, except for the fact that she probably won’t.
Tessa doesn’t say that, and she’s relieved when this gets Scott to turn off the music.
Tessa smiles, satisfied. “Thanks. Hopefully we never have to see each other again.”
“Good, because you’re infuriating,” he mumbles, closing his bedroom door.
Andrew, who Tessa had forgotten is here, lets out a sigh so loud she’s surprised it doesn’t make Scott turn on his music again, and it’s then that she sees how exhausted he looks. Her stomach fills with guilt.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, “that I came over here and fought with your roommate at two in the morning. We don’t like each other, as you can probably see.”
Andrew yawns, his mouth settling into a smile. “Really? It wasn’t obvious at all.”
The two of them laugh, and Tessa decides that it’s probably best if she leaves; it’s late, after all, and not only is she tired, but she’s sure that Andrew is, too.
“Well, I should probably get going. I have an exam in psychology on Monday that I have to study for. Sorry for bothering you so late.”
“No, don’t apologize, I’m really glad you did. You got Scott to turn the music off, which I never thought he would do. Goodnight.”
The door closes behind her, and she heads off to sleep.
*
The next week, Andrew invites her over for a movie night he’s having that Saturday, and Tessa’s hesitant to agree to go.
“I don’t know,” she tells him from where she’s leaning against the door to her apartment. It’s Tuesday, and he’d come over about an hour after she got home from class. “Is Scott going to be there? No offense, but I don’t want a repeat of Saturday.”
Andrew waves his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about Scott. He’s going home for the weekend, so he won’t be around. You’ll get to meet my girlfriend, Kaitlyn. I think the two of you would really get along.”
“Okay,” she agrees, “I’ll be there.”
Scott, as it turns out, does not go home for the weekend, but Tessa doesn’t say anything; Jenny and Lawrence have been fighting ever since she got home, and they still haven’t stopped. If she listens hard enough, she can hear the sound of their yelling in the next apartment over the sound of the movie.
Scott laughs too loudly at the jokes in the movie, which gives Tessa a headache.
“I’m not feeling well,” she tells the group, “so I think I’m going to head home.”
Kaitlyn, Andrew’s girlfriend who she just met tonight, smiles sadly at her. “Aw, it’s just getting to the good part! Don’t go!”
“Yeah, don’t go, Tessa!” Scott mocks in a high-pitched voice.
Kaitlyn lobs a handful of popcorn in his direction, and he opens his mouth and tries to catch it as it soars through the air and lands all around him.
“You don’t have to be such an asshole, you know,” Tessa remarks, directing it at him as she stands up. “I’ll see you guys later.”
Everyone wishes her various forms of goodnight, and thankfully Jenny and Lawrence have at least retreated to Jenny’s room to continue their yelling.
Tessa puts on a pair of headphones and plays music until she falls asleep.