TAINTED | Zayn Malik

Chapter 2 | wishful thinking

Do you ever regret the amount of hours you've spent at night staying up and just convincing yourself that once dawn hit, you won't be incredibly tired at all? That exhaustion was out of the question because those few hours of sleep would be enough? But then you wake up in the morning completely hung over from the lack of resting, and it doesn't help when someone is completely happy being so energetic? I was having one of those moments, right now.

My thoughtful neighbor had no problem waking me up early this morning as a gift for being new to the building, somehow it only seemed like a punishment for my late night power thinking, watching talk shows and doing work that I procrastinated doing for a week now. I moaned to myself, snatching the pillow from underneath my head, covering my ears to block out the sounds coming through my wall and air vent. But that seemed to do nothing at all to the loud and obnoxious music, even though his music taste was somehow good, I didn't find it admirable at this hour.

This was the downside of renting an apartment in affordable buildings, or 'cheap' inhabitable living arrangements according to my mother. You had to deal with slight problems that you wouldn't have living back at home or some fancy place that would charge you an amount that cost pretty much an arm and a leg for one room with no windows, and a stove all in the same place. After a couple more minutes I officially gave up the battle of trying to go back to sleep when clearly that wasn't happening any time soon, now that I was good and awake.

I wiped the saliva from my chin while yawning as I laid back down, grabbing my phone to check the time. At this point I had no reason to be upset, because I knew what I was signing up for when I put my name on the lease. It was better than admitting to my family that living at home was better than this. I found myself humming along to the lyrics, the bass not sounding so terrible anymore.

It was all good and fine for about three minutes, until the next familiar song began playing and I instantly smiled, I knew this song like the back of my hand. Two years ago my brother had introduced it to me on the night of a party, dancing around the house on Halloween, pigging out on candy while we did it. The memory played in my mind as I sung to the chorus once it blasted through the wall. "Welcome to the jungle." I sung along quietly, until a part I didn't noticed started playing along with it. I looked at the wall confused, what version of the song was this? The entire thing seemed off until banging starting pounding harder than the actual music, my wall shaking so hard that a poster I had on there with push pins started to fall.

I gasped in shock. "What the hell is that?" I murmured, sitting up for a moment.

It was fun and games trying to figure out what the banging meant until it was all followed by the series of loud pitchy moans coming through the air vent. I paused for a moment trying to figure out what the hell was going on, until it hit me. And that's when I realized it was time to leave for the day, especially if that was going to be happening.

"Ohhhh! Yes, please right there!" The banging started moving against the beat of the drums on the album.

"Oh my god?!" I quickly scurried up, pulling the covers off as fast as my exhausted body could go, rushing out the door with Midknight right behind me before slamming it shut.

It seemed that luck wasn't on my side this morning since I also realized, I was two hours late for school and I busted my ass trying to escape the sounds from my active neighbor and his - very pleased, uh, guest.

The noise was still very audible but it wasn't too bad that I could hear everything going on, but it just made me realize that I needed to invest in some ear plugs so I could avoid this if it was going to happen more frequently. And something told me that he didn't care if anyone heard him, and I didn't feel like being that person.