Chapter 1 The wall between us
The wall between our rooms is thin — cardboard, honestly — as if the dorm architect decided students didn't deserve actual privacy. I found out on the very first night my new neighbor moved in. Before her, a guy named Brody lived there, snoring like a clogged pipe. I almost missed that snoring; at least it didn't force me to listen.
She forces me to listen.
At first, it was just ordinary noises. The creak of an old chair when she sits at her desk. The thud of sneakers hitting the floor — one, two — as she neatly removes her shoes by the door instead of kicking them off. Then came her voice. In the evening, she talks on the phone, keepings her voice low. But the walls here aren't built for secrets, and I catch fragments of her conversations: “No, Mom, I'm fine,” “No, I don't regret transferring,” “Just give me a little time.”
I didn't mean to memorize any of it. It just stuck.
By the third night, I already know she doesn't go to sleep before 1:00 AM. I know she plays a quiet indie band before bed — I still haven't figured out the name — and that she has a habit of whispering to herself when something frustrates her. A short, annoyed “come on,” directed at her lecture notes or her laptop charger.
I tell myself it's just curiosity. That anyone would pay attention with a wall this thin. That it isn't about me — it's about the architect.
I see her face for the first time on Tuesday, in the hallway, completely by accident — if that word even applies when I intentionally linger at the water fountain five minutes longer than necessary just because I heard her door open.
She's short, her dark hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. Simple silver hoops in her ears. Her face wears the exact kind of indifference usually reserved for looking at a wall, not a person. She walks right past me without a glance, and with absolute, almost insulting clarity, I realize she has no idea who I am.
It should feel refreshing. Everyone on campus knows who I am — the swim team captain, the face on the gym banner, the guy whispered about in the bleachers. Usually, eyes drift toward me automatically, without any effort on my part. But she passed me like I was just a fixture in the hallway.
It doesn't feel refreshing. It pisses me off so much that I stand by the fountain for another minute just trying to process what I'm feeling.
“You look lost,” Brody says, my former neighbor, passing by with a laundry basket. “Forget how to pour water?”
“Just thinking,” I say.
“About what?”
I don't answer. Because the truth — “about the girl behind the wall whose name I don't even know” — would sound like something I'm not ready to admit to myself yet.
That evening, I learn her name. Not by accident, either. I explicitly check the resident list posted near the wing entrance under the pretense of looking for the laundry room number. Room 214. May Richards.
May. I repeat the name once in my head, and it lodges somewhere behind my ribs like a splinter that feels good to press against.
That night, lying in the dark, I listen to her get ready for bed — the same indie band, the same squeak of the mattress, the same heavy sigh she uses every night to decide the day is over. I know I should sleep. I have practice at 6:00 AM.
Instead, I lie there listening to the life of someone who doesn't know I exist. I think about how unfair that is to her — and then I think about how unfair it was for her to walk right past me without a second glance.
I decide I'm going to make her notice me. Not all at once. Not aggressively. Just... notice.
It takes me a surprisingly short amount of time to figure out how.
