It's sometime after the afternoon when I stand up from sitting at the study table for 3 hours straight after doing two online classes in a row. I shut my laptop and place it on the charger and then take my phone and headphones and walk around the table in the living room listening to the new playlist I created. Olivia Rodrigo is on rising honestly. Next Taylor Swift with amazing vocals and an amazing album that already won her three awards at the VMAs. All it took her was a heartbreak to make an entire album and then win awards with it. Definitely worth the heartbreak. My brother comes running from his room and then jumps and runs across the living room, bangs his hands on the wall far end of the main door, and goes running back to his room following his rhythm for the next half an hour. A crazy habit he created and got so used to that sometimes it feels like he is mentally ill, a lunatic in the rush at all hours but also explains why he is so scrawny even though he eats just enough. I sometimes think I made it my custom to walk around and around the table in the living room from my brother but that's not true. I remember how this turned into my habit too. When I was 14 and I talked to a creepy taboo human stranger on the internet who happened to be my crush for a whole month or the only crush and I waited for him to reply back by walking around the table or thinking of a reply. Why was I like that honestly?

  The doorbell rings and the annoying sound of "Happy Birthday To You" goes off announcing the arrival of someone on our door porch. I walk to the door and peek through the peephole to see who it is. It's M.s. Hatice's son Zayn. I can already feel the tension between my eyebrows and I  can see the same mirrored expression on his face through the peephole. I take two long breaths before I open the door wide open. I fake a smile that is clearly so understandable but that's the whole point.
"Hello, there, Zayn, how can I help you? Please come inside", I say smiling as if I already wasn't thinking how to get him the hell out without a fuss.

"Thanks but I'll have to pass on that there is something that will make me happier and you seem nicer." I know where this is going but I still ask him anyway.

"What?", since you love the drama so much,  That leaves me no choice but to play along.

"If your brother can walk with his feet and not jump around like a monkey for no reason at all, that would help a lot," he says with an exasperated look. 

"Monkey? My brother? In my own house, in front of me, you call my brother stuff?", I ask with disbelief. The nerve this guy has! I'm trying to keep in the sipping bitter anger inside me. "Well, for instance, it's his own house so he is allowed to do whatever the hell that he wants to and it shouldn't bother anyone secondly you cannot compare my brother to any animal like that, and obviously not in front of me," I say without stuttering. I did not stutter even for once, I said all of this in a single breath without stuttering. Yes, I'm proud of myself for just saying this without stuttering and not embarrassing myself.

"This is not the first time I'm bringing in the complaint but you just don't keep it in so I myself have to come to you to remind you that you own the apartment, not the whole building. There are people below this floor. Peaceful people who study during the afternoon and people who take a nap. You made people's lives miserable here," he says with so much conviction and a vicious tone that instantly infuriates me.  If I don't render him speechless today I would rather change my name. I'll get his brain cells working back again. 

"Miserable? Us? Your family made our lives miserable. Every two days your mother or you will show up to argue with me and my mom over absolutely nothing and now it seems you've made a habit out of it. You can't digest your food without complaining. It's like, I haven't complained at the neighbors upstairs, how can I  digest my food, it's no fun, that's how it is, right?"
"Ayla!", he screeches at me with his eyes almost bulging out.

"What?", I say with just the same bitter tone.

"I said NO MORE SOUND! Or else this isn't gonna look too good", he says through gritted teeth. 

"Or else what?... What will you do?", I screech back.

"You'll see," he says as he backs away from the porch and walks to the elevator.

"I'm desperately waiting. Next time learn manners before you come and talk to me because you know you lack in that department", I shout as the door to the elevator closes.  Asshole. I go to my brother's room and scream at him for doing the same thing he has been asked not to do so many times. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~'~'
It's 8 at night when I find myself playing my keyboard and finding a rhythm to a song I've been writing, though it's still in the process. I've been playing the keys for the past half an hour but still no luck. My windows are open and the weather is nice. The cold wind blows on my face through the window and instantly motivates me and puts me in a nice mood. The crescent moon is somewhat covered in a golden hue today on the window at the back wall far end of my bed and to the window in front of me, close to the headboard side of my bed is another window facing the window to the apartment in the front except no one resides there. Such a turn off honestly. It would've been so much fun if someone my age lived there.  We could talk from our windows and become best friends and all. In the evenings Mikayla, my neighbor, and best friend since forever, and the neighbor in the front window if put into existence could take a walk outside and eat ice cream on the way. So cool. I try to sing the lyrics hoping that would help me find a rhythm:

He's kinda the guy I like
Quiet but speaks volumes through his eyes
And no we don't talk all the time
But when I am in need I always find him by my side
And someday I swear I'll make him mine

It's like the 80's love I swear
We write love letters and all
We speak in long stares
Like a love story hidden from the world.

As I'm about to play the keys to the piano I hear music. Someone's playing guitar. But that's not what caught my attention, he's singing them too and it's the song that I wrote and the one I was singing just a moment ago. The rhythm to my song. He has a crispy deep voice and it sounds so good hearing them from him. I rush out from the chair to my window looking back and forth and sideways to see who it is but my eyes meet no one.  So I begin singing the song with him and I walk back out of the main door to outside to see whoever it is.  This is so exciting. Walking out I find no one. I know all our neighbors and none of them has a guy of this sound range. All are kids or older uncles. I still look back and across the hall from my porch. The music and singing can be heard more strongly and loudly from here. I look straight at the door of the apartment in the front to see it unlocked. Nobody lives here so who could it be? Should I walk inside or just go back? I hesitantly take a  step forward.