The Quirky Tale of April Hale (Quirky Series #1)

1. And I Thought Our First Conversation Would be More Dramatic than This

1. And I Thought Our First Conversation Would be More Dramatic than This

"You're not my son, Ryder! You're one goddamn devil!" A man bellowed on top of his lungs.

"Who the hell wants to be your son, anyway?!" Another man shouted back, his voice was a bit higher, indicating his youth. The venom in his words, however, matched the older one.

"Can't you two just stop fighting?" This time, a woman piped in, but instead of calming things down, the two men's fight became even worse, resulting in higher volume and more profanities at the argument.

Sometimes, a few slapping and clacking sounds could be heard, which meant that they had started throwing things at each other.

I rubbed my eyes sleepily. It wasn't even six-thirty in the morning, and already, everything was ear-shattering. My cellphone was under my pillow, and it was supposed to ring the alarm twenty minutes later. But of course, the Blacks weren't kind enough to let me have my eight hours of beauty sleep.

For people who liked to fight and yell at one another, they rose from bed pretty annoyingly early.

Lately, the Blacks 'good-morning' fights had been my personal alarm. Most of the fights went down on their kitchen, which was located not more than ten meters from me. The walls in our neighborhood were thin, I tell you.

Pro of having my own personal alarm; A sure way to get up, since their bickerings were obviously a far more effective alarm than my cellphone-based one.

Con of having my own personal alarm; I felt like I was getting wrinkles because of sleep deprivation. They didn't stop even at weekends.

"Get out of the house, Ryder!" The older man shouted, it didn't take a psychologist to recognize the absolute hatred in his voice.

"Gladly, Gregory!" Ryder retorted.

'Not a good option, Ryder, every time you say your father's given name, the fight would last more than three days!" I mumbled to myself, as I took my toothbrush.

As I brushed my teeth, I listened more to their fight.

It was about the pancake today. Apparently, Mrs. Black had some burnt parts on the edge of Ryder's pancake, and Ryder refused to eat those particular crusts. Enraged, Mr. Black attacked Ryder verbally, and he of course attacked back.

That was how things had been with the Blacks.

"I'll leave the house! I'll leave the fucking house today!" Ryder was shouting on the top of his lungs.

"Ryder!" Mrs. Black cried out.

"Get off me, Mom! I want to get away from this monster." Even from this distance, I could hear Mr. Black gasping, as Ryder shoved his mother away from him.

I could already imagine what Mr. Black's face would look like; flaring nostrils, the bald area of his head glinting at the morning sunlight, his beard went ultra frizzy and scraggly, with a bit of saliva got caught in between the hairs.

Okay. So I stalked my neighbor a lot. Big deal.

"You're an insolent, disrespectful kid! You're not my son!"

Ha! Told ya that Mr. Black would go loco if he said that. Another score for April!

Anyway, I was very much aware that I was acting like a complete ignorant whack-job here. A neighbor of mine was having a serious fight with his father, and yet, here I was, doing commentaries. I knew I should try to placate them, or at least sympathize with them, but then living next to them for the last ten years had dulled my sympathy in respond to their daily fights.