Page 1 of I Knew He Was Trouble
Thereareveryfewreasons I would be okay with being woken up at four in the morning.
One: Jesse McCartney is at my door telling me I’m the beautiful soul he wants.
Two: I’m leaving for a week-long, all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.
Three: My besties wake me up to tell me that Taylor Swift dropped a surprise album overnight.
All of those are perfectly acceptable reasons—great, even. But nowhere on my list would iteverinclude waking up to my neighbor blaring hip-hop music for his workout session at this unreasonable hour.
“For the love of biscuits,” I groan, slapping my hands on my bed. I reluctantly push myself up from the warmth of the heavenly comforter and immediately wrap a blanket around my shoulders to stave off the chill of early fall air.
I slip on my fuzzy mocha slippers and shuffle over to my window, brush my curtains aside, and glare at my despicable, uncivil jerk of a neighbor.
I’ve despised Tyler Reed since the first day I met him. Or should I say,heardhim.
Of course, he couldn’t be a normal person who goes to the gym. Nope. Instead, he works out every morning at four-thirty in his home with hip-hop music blaring before going to work. Who does that? Psychopaths, that’s who. There has to be something pathologically wrong with him that makes him choose to wake up before the roosters crow.
Did I mention Tyler’s had this routine every single morning for the past two years? Every. Single. Morning.Lucky me.
After the first month of it consistently happening, I tried using earplugs, but I actually gotlesssleep because of the weird feeling they gave me having something shoved into my ear canals.
I’ve debated pounding on Tyler’s door a million times, wanting to berate him for his inconsiderate nature, but something has held me back every time. I guess I’m just a kinder human than him. Or maybe it’s the fact that letting the dogs I walk use his yard as their restroom feels like a better form of revenge.
It makes me smile just imagining the confusion and disbelief written on his face when he sees all the dead spots in his front yard courtesy of dog urine. I’m not a terrible person, though…I always pick up their poop, even if the thought of him stepping in it makes me excessively happy.
The next song on Tyler’s playlist comes on, and I groan. A girl can only take so much Busta Rhymes before sunrise.
Bless his early morning, hip-hop-loving heart.
In case you didn’t know, in the South, that’s the equivalent of the middle finger, but I try not to curse…so Tyler is the lucky recipient of all my internalbless your hearts.
Tyler and I have hardly interacted in the last two years I’ve lived here. The only reason I even know his name is because my roomies and I got a piece of his mail right after we moved in thatIgraciouslyreturned to him along with a loaf of banana bread—my attempt at being a kind, new neighbor.
Instead of accepting it like a normal person, Tyler told me he doesn’t eat a lot of carbs. I’m not sure I could ever trust anyone who doesn’t eat carbs.
The chorus hits, the beat pounding against my eardrums. If I’m going to survive the morning, I need a cup of coffee.
I grimace. It sounds like Tyler turned up the volume a few notches, instantly making my head throb.
Scratch that, I need an entire pot.
My barista job has made me a bit of a coffee snob, but today, I don’t care what form my caffeine comes in as long as there’sa lotof it. I trudge my way to the kitchen to get a pot of coffee brewing, my eyes only open wide enough so I don’t fall down the stairs.
I revel in the sweet silence while I wait for the coffee to brew. I can only hear Tyler’s obnoxious music in my bedroom—probably because my window is right across from his workout space—but I’m happy it doesn’t disturb my roommates’ sleep schedules.
The scent of freshly brewed coffee overwhelms my senses, and it smells like pure heaven. I grab the largest mug in our antique cabinet and fill it with the steaming java goodness before adding a splash of cinnamon dolce creamer.
I take a giant sip, ignoring the scalding sensation burning my mouth and throat. I’m too tired to care. I need caffeine more than I need my taste buds at the moment.
My steps are light and careful as I avoid the creaky spots of the wood flooring up the stairwell and down the hallway back to my bedroom. I may be awakened at this unusual hour every day, but I don’t want my three besties to suffer the same fate.
I would do anything for the girls who have stuck with me faithfully, like an old pair of jeans, for the past decade. We allmet when we were sixth graders at a Taylor Swift concert. Each of us was in the front row, our moms as chaperones. We bonded throughout the concert, screaming our tween hearts out. By the end of the night, we had dubbed ourselves theLong Live Girlies, and a forever kind of friendship was born.
I run my finger along the wood frame, showcasing a picture of the four of us from that night, our arms around each other’s shoulders and giant grins pasted on our young faces. Even though she’s blurry, Taylor is mid-motion performing on the stage behind us. I’m grateful for that day—the one that forever changed my life.
We discovered that we lived within a thirty-minute radius of each other, even though we went to different middle schools, and thus began the tradition of Friday night sleepovers. And we never turned back. We even maintained our ritual during college, thanks to video calls and the group watch feature on our favorite streaming platforms. We were so set on keeping this tradition that, whenever any of us started dating, the boy quickly learned that Friday nights were off-limits. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
I’m already dreading the day my friends fall in love, get engaged, move out, and live their married lives. I’m the independent one—the girl who would rather be forever single than tied down to a person or place. Especially after watching the demise of my parents’ relationship as a child. Just the thought of marriage makes my skin itch.
