Closest I Get

Chapter Seven

Early February

Her music is blaring from the speakers, the loudest it can possibly be. She's been playing it at a high volume for several hours now, but no one has come around to complain, no one banging at her door to turn the music down because there are people trying to go about their days without such a disruption. She wishes they would, though. Just so she can yank the door open and see Tori again.

Ever since she came home with her bruised pride and her tail between her legs the other night, all she wished was for Tori to have moved out then and there. While Jade struggled to catch a wink of sleep that night, Tori would have disappeared leaving Jade completely alone. That way, Jade would just know that she's already gone and not still leaving. Instead, she struggles through the next two days wondering if there's nothing across the hall from her anymore. She struggles through it now knowing that Tori's moving out today.

She doesn't take her eyes away from the u-haul parked down below with Tori's things. She thinks it's a kind of penance, a deserved punishment for the stupid and cowardly decisions she's made.

/

"My shoulders weren't built for this, you know."

Tori glares at her. "It's the first box you carried."

"Yeah, but I'm tired now."

"Look, at least these are just boxes and not furniture."

"Yeah, thank god for that. Besides, you tricked me; you advertised this move as 'easy, quick, and painless'. I signed up because it sounded like what my Friday nights used to be like."

"Ugh, that's gross."

"No, what's gross is you said you had 'like six boxes' not 'like sixty'," she says mimicking her voice and throwing up air quotations.

Tori glares at her sister again before pointing at the door. Trina rolls her eyes and lugs the box but not before muttering under her breath. "You better be glad Gorge's coming or you're gonna be doing this on your own."

"I heard that," she says when her sister reaches the threshold.

"Yeah, good because I meant it."

As she inspects her surroundings for anything she may have forgotten, she's reminded of the faint thumping of music from across the hall. It's not a secret anymore that she's leaving, but a tiny part of her hopes that Jade knows she's leaving today just to rub it in her face.

Her leaving is a reminder of having hurt the both of them.

"What's up?" Trina reaches the floor landing, slightly out of breath. She looks away from the red door across the hall and hands the box in her hands to her sister.

"Nothing. Nothing."

.

When the last of her things have been cleared that afternoon, she meets the building superintendent for one last procedural inspection. After he finishes the inspection, she hands her apartment keys to him.

"Sorry to be losing your business, Miss Vega."

"Um," she starts, switching her sight between him and the door. "Shouldn't you let her know her music is too loud?"

"We could," he says with a shrug. "But we're not really too strict about things here. Nobody's complained about it yet. Unless you're filing an official complaint right now?"

"N-no," she stutters. "I'm not."

He shrugs before making his way to the stairwell. She takes one last look at her door and the one across from it before jogging to catch up to him.