The Noise Next Door
There were exactly three rules to surviving the seventh floor of our apartment complex, and numbers one through three were all the same: never, under any circumstances, make eye contact with a Lockhart when the elevator doors open.
Our families had owned the two largest corner apartments on this floor for over twenty years. For twenty years, the polished concrete hallway between our front doors had been an active war zone. Our grandparents fought over who left their muddy shoes near the emergency staircase. Our parents fought over whose balcony AC unit was dripping water onto the pristine cars parked in the courtyard below. And Zyran and I? We fought simply because we breathed the same air.
Which was why being trapped in the building’s tiny, suffocating elevator with him at two o’clock on a scorching Saturday afternoon felt like a specialized form of torture.
I stood frozen in the back corner of the elevator car, clutching my oversized school backpack against my chest like a shield. The metal box crawled upward at a painful, glacial pace, the old ceiling fan overhead doing absolutely nothing to cut through the suffocating Karachi heat.
Standing right next to the button panel was Zyran. Even at thirteen, he was already hitting a sudden, frustrating growth spurt that made him tower over me. His school uniform tie was loosened, his collar unbuttoned, and a messy mop of dark hair fell directly into his eyes.
He didn’t say a word, but he deliberately shifted his weight, his heavy school shoes sliding an inch past the invisible line that split the elevator floor in half. Right onto my side of the tiles.
“You’re trespassing, Lockhart,” I snapped, glaring down at the scuffed leather of his shoe. “Move back to your side.”
Zyran didn’t even turn his head. He just kept his eyes locked onto the glowing floor numbers above the door, a lazy, incredibly annoying smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “It’s a public elevator, Khan. If you want private transit, tell your dad to build you a private helicopter.”
“You’re intentionally blocking the fan,” I muttered, my temper rising with the temperature inside the box. “And your family left three giant trash bags right outside our door this morning. It smells like rotting onions.”
Finally, Zyran turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto mine with that sharp, intensely competitive look he had given me since we were toddlers. “Those were your mom’s delivery boxes, actually. My dad spent ten minutes moving them out of the way so he wouldn’t trip on his way to work. Maybe learn to read the mailing labels before you start pointing fingers.”
Ding.
The elevator finally shuddered to a heavy halt at the seventh floor. The metal doors slid open, offering a temporary escape from the suffocating tension. But before I could step out into the hallway, Zyran deliberately extended his arm, leaning casually against the frame to block the narrow exit.
He looked down at me, his smirk widening as he enjoyed my absolute fury. “After you, neighbor. Try not to trip over your own laces.”
I shoved past his arm with as much force as my thirteen-year-old frame could muster, marching straight across the tile corridor toward the safety of the Khan front door. Chapter one of our teenage years was officially beginning, and neither of us had any idea that the very building keeping us apart would eventually be the only thing holding us together.
