the beginning of the end
Chapter One — The Beginning of the End
The first thing I learned about university was that dreams were expensive.
Not the tuition fees. Those were the obvious part.
I mean the hidden costs nobody warns you about—the hours of sleep you lose, the meals you forget to eat, the textbooks that somehow cost more than your monthly grocery budget, the transportation, the part-time jobs you take because you need money, and the small pieces of yourself you quietly sacrifice while trying to convince everyone that you're doing fine.
I had entered university with one simple dream: become a doctor.
It sounded noble when I said it out loud.
In reality, most days it sounded more like, Please let me pass this exam without crying in front of a cadaver.
I was a medical student, which meant I had somehow chosen a career where everyone expected me to save lives while I was still struggling to save my own sleep schedule.
My alarm was set for six in the morning.
My first lecture started at eight.
My part-time job started at six-thirty.
Somewhere between those three facts was a version of me who apparently believed that twenty-four hours was an unnecessarily generous amount of time.
The hostel was supposed to make university life easier. It was close to campus, relatively affordable, and filled with students who were supposedly in the same situation as me.
That last part was technically true.
We were all students.
We were just not all sane.
Hostel life had its own survival rules. Never leave food unattended. Never assume the person smiling at you is your friend. Never leave your charger somewhere unless you were prepared to defend it in court. And, most importantly, if you had an exam the next morning, do not tell anyone.
The moment people found out, someone would inevitably say, “Don't worry, I haven't studied either.”
Then they would casually mention that they had finished three textbooks.
I hated those people.
I also secretly admired them.
My room was small enough that if I stretched my arms out, I could probably touch both walls. My desk was permanently buried under anatomy notes, half-finished assignments, highlighters, and coffee cups that I kept promising myself I would throw away.
I rarely did.
There were nights when I studied until two in the morning and woke up four hours later feeling like someone had removed my brain during the night and replaced it with wet cotton.
Still, I kept going.
Because I wanted this.
I had seen enough suffering to know why I had chosen medicine. I wanted to be useful. I wanted to look at someone who was hurting and know what to do. I wanted to become the person people could trust when everything else in their lives felt uncertain.
That dream was the one thing I refused to compromise on.
Unfortunately, the hostel had other plans for me.
It wasn't one dramatic incident that made me leave.
It was everything.
The constant noise. The lack of privacy. The arguments. The careless roommates. The uncomfortable atmosphere. The feeling that I could never completely relax because there was always someone around.
I could tolerate difficult things.
What I couldn't tolerate was never having a place where I could breathe.
So, one evening, after coming back from work with aching feet and a headache that had been following me since morning, I sat on the edge of my bed and looked at my bank balance.
It wasn't impressive.
It wasn't even remotely impressive.
But it was enough.
Maybe.
I stared at the number for a long time.
Then I opened my phone and started looking for apartments.
That was how I made most of my major life decisions.
I panicked first.
Then I researched.
Then I made a spreadsheet.
Then I panicked about the spreadsheet.
Three weeks later, I was standing outside a small apartment building in a part of the city that most of my university friends probably wouldn't have chosen voluntarily.
It wasn't beautiful.
The building had peeling paint, narrow corridors, and stairs that looked as though they had personally survived several wars.
But it was affordable.
And, most importantly, it was mine.
Well.
Technically, it belonged to the landlord.
But I had paid the deposit, signed the agreement, and carried approximately seventy percent of my belongings up three flights of stairs myself.
That gave me emotional ownership.
I unlocked the door and stepped inside.
The apartment was tiny.
One bedroom. One bathroom. A small kitchen. A window that looked directly at another building.
Perfect.
I dropped my bag onto the floor and stood there quietly.
For the first time in months, there was no shouting outside my door.
No footsteps in the corridor
No roommate asking whether she could borrow something.
No one arguing over whose turn it was to clean.
Just silence.
Beautiful, glorious silence.
I closed my eyes.
Maybe I had finally done something right.
I unpacked slowly, arranging my books on the little shelf beside my desk. My medical textbooks took up most of it. I placed my notebooks beside them, followed by the few personal things I had brought from home.
The apartment didn't look like much.
But when I sat on the edge of my bed that night, I smiled.
I had a place to come back to.
A place where I could study.
A place where I could sleep.
A place where nobody expected anything from me.
At least, that's what I thought.
At approximately nine o'clock that evening, my new neighbour began playing the guitar.
Loudly.
I opened my textbook.
The guitar continued.
I turned the page.
Someone started singing.
I stopped reading.
The singing wasn't bad.
That was somehow worse.
If it had been terrible, I could have hated it without guilt.
Instead, whoever was next door had the irritating ability to actually sound good.
I tried to ignore it.
Five minutes.
Ten minutes.
Fifteen.
Then the same guitar progression started again.
I slowly put my pen down.
“Okay,” I whispered to myself. “Maybe we're going to have a conversation.”
I stood up and walked toward the door.
Then I stopped.
I looked down at myself.
Oversized university T-shirt. Track pants. Hair tied into a messy bun. Dark circles under my eyes. One sock.
I looked like I had lost a fight with medical school.
Perfect.
I opened the door and stepped into the corridor.
The music became louder.
I walked toward the apartment next to mine and stopped in front of the door.
For a moment, I hesitated.
I could hear the guitar clearly now.
The same voice.
The same song.
The same confidence of a person who apparently believed the entire building had purchased tickets to his private concert.
I knocked.
The music stopped.
Silence.
I waited.
Nothing.
I knocked again.
Still nothing.
I folded my arms.
“Seriously?”
The door remained closed.
I knocked a third time.
This time, I heard movement from inside.
Someone was coming.
I straightened, prepared to give a perfectly reasonable speech about noise levels, university schedules, and basic consideration for neighbours.
The handle moved.
The door began to open.
And for reasons I would understand much later, that was the exact moment my peaceful little life started falling apart.
I just didn't know it yet.
I didn't know who lived behind that door.
I didn't know what he was running from.
I didn't know what he wanted from life, or why he had chosen to live in a place like this when he could have lived almost anywhere.
And I certainly didn't know that the irritating man next door would eventually become one of the most important people in my life.
At that moment, though, I had only one concern.
Whoever was about to open that door was about to learn exactly how patient I was.
And unfortunately for him, I wasn't very patient at all.
