Montclair Court

The walls of the apartment complex on Montclair Court were paper thin. Most days, even a slight breeze was enough to rattle the windows and send a cold draft through the units. In exchange for decent insulation, the tenants had layers and layers of thick, poorly applied white paint - the kind that covered even the light switch covers and outlets, and made no pretense about being splashed around the edges of the doorknobs as well. Still, this wasn’t the worst place Anna had lived. Not by a long shot. Despite the building’s drab and outdated appearance, it was in a quiet neighborhood with sidewalks and large trees. It was a far sight better than the apartment she’d had two moves ago, the one over by the Marathon Station.

At least here on Montclair Court, Anna could walk from the modest parking lot up to her second floor apartment without stepping over broken glass and used needles. Despite the fact that she couldn’t make toast and brew coffee at the same time without flipping the breaker, she found this place to have a simple charm, in the way only a penny-poor young woman with a fresh taste of independence would. And besides, the neighbors all seemed friendly. They’d at least make eye contact and smile or nod at you if they passed you in the hall. Again, a big step up from some of her previous short-lived settlements.

With no overhead light in the living room, Anna was huddled in her armchair by the window, taking advantage of the fading daylight to do some reading for class. She kept meaning to buy a nice floor lamp, but it was a low enough priority that it was never at the front of her mind when she could do something about it. She was wrapped in her reading when she heard a door slam.

Not a door in her apartment, of course, as she was the only one who lived here. It didn’t even sound like a door in the hallway. Perhaps an interior door of a nearby unit. The sudden hush that followed made the next bit of rising conversation even more stark against silence.

“Oh come on!” A man’s voice rang out sharply.

“No!” The word ripped through the air, a woman’s voice.

Anna’s pinpointed the conversation as coming from the apartment on her left. Having only moved in a few weeks ago at the start of the semester, Anna still hadn’t met this couple, though she knew two people lived there, having heard bits and pieces of their conversations on previous days. Not intentionally of course, but it couldn’t be avoided. Usually one couldn’t make out full words or sentences, just a murmur of conversation, a cough, a hearty laugh now and then. Of course, with elevated voices like this, it was impossible not to hear.

More muffled words, and a crash like something had been knocked over. Anna’s heart was pounding in her chest, she stood up. What was going on? Her eyes flicked to her cellphone on the side table, wondering if she would need to call the police.

The man’s voice was suddenly quieter, it sounded pleading.

“Leave me ALONE!!” She shouted back. Another door slammed. Then silence.

Anna waited. Not realizing she had been holding her breath, she released it slowly. She waiting longer still, bare feet chilled by the cold wooden floor. But she heard nothing else. Sighing, Anna walked to the bathroom. Her adrenaline was still unnaturally high, her brain flooded with all the fight or flight chemicals as if she had been in the apartment over. She turned on the light as she entered the bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror a moment, still unsure what to do with herself.

As she stood there, she realized she could hear sobbing. Not loud, dramatic sobbing, like someone who was seeking attention. The kind of half-quiet sobs of a person whose sadness was pouring out of them like an overfull basin, and there was nowhere else for the sadness to go. Anna couldn’t tell if it was the man or the woman, but she realized they must be right on the other side of the wall, locked away in their own bathroom. She sat down then on her bathroom rug, and placed her hand against the cool tile wall, as if trying to connect with her grieving neighbor. And she, too, began to cry.