Thirty Thousand Shortfall

"Sweetheart, just between us, if you can tolerate it, then tolerate it. Otherwise, leave as soon as you can."

I took my things from her, holding back my irritation, and thanked her.

Well, I wasn’t afraid. I had just spent my entire savings on that apartment.

Leave?

I let out a silent, cold laugh. It was the first time I’d ever heard of someone trying to force a psychiatric patient out of her own home.

When I got back upstairs, I saw a plastic bag hanging from my doorknob.

Inside was a dead rat. There was a note in the bag: "This is the first time. Next time, it’ll be alive."

I scoffed, tied the bag shut, and tossed it right back at Linda’s door. I’d dealt with plenty of rats before.

At eleven that night, I had just fallen asleep when the sound of a power drill jolted me awake. It was coming from across the hall: Unit 601.

The drilling stopped, only to be replaced by the pounding of a hammer.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The vibration made the glass of water on my nightstand tremble.

When I was discharged, Dr. Adrian Pike had repeatedly warned me to maintain good sleep. Now that I’d been woken up like this, a sharp headache started to build.

Suppressing my anger, I opened the door.

Their place was brightly lit. Linda’s husband, Carl Carver, was hammering nails into the wall. Linda stood in the middle of the living room, casually snacking on chips and directing him.

I knocked on her doorframe.

She turned and saw me, her eyes lighting up like she’d been waiting for this.

"It’s almost midnight," I said, frowning. "Can you continue this tomorrow? You’re keeping the whole floor awake."

She smiled, then called over her shoulder, "Hey, Carl, she says we’re disturbing the whole building."

Carl didn’t respond.

Linda turned back to me. "Listen, sweetheart, I’m not trying to make things difficult for you. If you won’t pay that $30,000, and my son still has a wedding to pay for, then we’ll just have to save money ourselves. Think of it as making up for what we didn’t get from you. If it’s noisy, that’s your problem. Deal with it."

She leaned in closer, lowering her voice, "Or pay up, and we stop immediately. We’ll even hire the best contractors and renovate everything quietly for you. How does that sound?"

Looking at her utterly self-righteous face, I laughed. Did she really think I was some easy target?

I pulled out my phone. "Then I’ll call the police."

Linda spat a piece of a chip straight at my face and sneered. "Go ahead. I’ll be waiting."

When the police arrived, Linda suddenly clutched her chest and collapsed into the hallway, her face pale. She pointed at me, gasping for breath.

"It’s her! She was banging on our door in the middle of the night, pounding on it for minutes! When I opened it, she was glaring at me like a lunatic. I have a heart condition. I can’t handle that kind of shock!"

Carl rushed out and, without warning, kicked me hard in the stomach. "If anything happens to my wife, I’m not letting you off!"

Officer Ryan Keller tried to intervene, but it was too late.

A sharp pain exploded in my abdomen, forcing me to double over. My vision flickered, going dark at the edges.

Officer Keller was about to reprimand Carl, but Linda immediately grabbed onto the officer, crying.

"Officer, you have to stand up for me! I’m a heart patient—I can’t take being frightened like that!"

Officer Keller turned to look at me.

My whole body trembled with anger, and my heart was racing. It was coming on.

I startled myself and quickly took a deep breath.

"Officer," I said through clenched teeth, "I have intermittent explosive disorder.

"It was diagnosed at a top hospital. I have the records at home, and you can verify anytime. My doctor specifically warned me that a lack of sleep can trigger episodes.

"I came to knock on their door because they were renovating," I said, pointing at the time on my phone. "They’ve been at it since eleven—drilling, hammering, moving furniture. The whole building can hear it. I couldn’t sleep, so I came to talk."