My neighbours have been consistently going at it every night between 8:30 and 9:00pm for the past week. 

It makes me think the universe is trying very hard to be funny because that also happens to be the exact time frame that I—a person that has finally discovered the bliss of sleeping because it just entered adult life—happens to go to bed. 

The silence is loud, but Mickey and Melissa are louder.  

Since it was already the fourth or fifth day in a row, hearing them did not come as a surprise to me anymore and I was content knowing it will be gone in five to ten minutes, and that soon enough all three of us will finally go to bed. It was while lying in bed and waiting it out that their consistency—and possible reason for it—dawned on me.

“Shit.”

I flung the blanket off of me in one swoop, tumbling with my legs forward and out of the bed, sprinting full power out of my bedroom and headed straight for the living room wall. Fired and with a new unlocked top speed, I charged right at it. 

My head burst clean right through the wall, past the paper thin separation and into the bedroom of apartment 101, face to face with Mickey. On their side of the wall, my head hung right above their headboard, while on mine was the rest of my body, suspended, held back by my shoulders. 

Mickey froze. 

Underneath, Melissa also froze. 

Above the both of them, the words began gushing out of me. “I’M NOT READY!”

They exchanged a look at each other.

“I’M NOT READY TO BECOME THE GRUMPY NEIGHBOR! I’M NOT READY!”

“..Uhm…”

“LISTEN! I HAVE SO MANY MORE SILENT NIGHTS AND QUIET MORNINGS LEFT IN ME PLEASE, YOU CANNOT GIVE ME A NEIGHBOR CHILD YET.”

One whole sweaty, panting, wheezing discourse later, Mickey held up a glass of water for me to drink while still stuck to their wall, and I drank the water while Melissa told me she was actively taking birth control.