But she was completely out of luck.
It seemed as if this couple was determined to keep going until one of them lost their voice, and it was only getting worse by the second.
She looked at the clock on the nightstand and could see it was two pm. Even though it was the middle of the day, and she had no right to expect anyone to be quiet as mice, and with these paper-thin walls, this argument was so brutal it was almost driving her insane.
She was exhausted, and she had to sleep.
She had to get up and be prepared to work the long night shift at Tanner’s, the local strip club. She would usually be full of excitement and anticipation, but she was so tired all she could feel was creeping dread.
“Please, just be quiet,” she groaned into her pillow, as she wrapped it around her ears and closed her eyes again.
For a second, she could almost feel the silence enveloping her, but it was quickly shattered when a loud bang and crash made the whole building vibrate. She sat bolt upright in bed. It had been so loud and harsh, it was as if a bomb had just exploded beneath her.
“You’re a crazy woman!” the man’s voice finally broke the eerie silence of the aftermath. “You could have killed me!”
“Well maybe I wanted to,” she growled back. “I’m so sick of your shit!”
Star rolled her eyes and flopped back down under the covers.
Since she had moved into the building, she had done nothing but loathe it. Since the arrival of the world’s angriest couple, things had only gotten worse.
It wasn’t the nicest area of Slate Springs, but since Star had arrived in town, she wasn’t exactly in a place to be picky when it came to putting a roof over her head. She had been lucky to tie somewhere down at all. She had done her best to make the place feel like home. This apartment block was old and weathered, and it was one of the only buildings in the town that wasn’t privately owned. It had been left to rot. Even though it was cheap, it felt as if she were living on another planet.
Star found herself in Slate Springs after she fled her hometown to look for a better life. After growing up in a trailer park, she had seen her fair share of horror stories, and she had decided that it was no longer going to be the life for her. She had grown up surrounded by criminals and danger. When she found herself passing through Slate Springs, the place already kind of felt like home.
She had fallen in love with its dusky charm; the desert landscape was both unforgiving and awe-inspiring. She arrived via the cab of a truck, after she had hitchhiked her way across the country. When she saw the way the town had been put together, she had actually clapped her hands together with glee.
It was a quaint little place, but it clearly had a dark side. She wandered into Tanner’s on her first night in town. She knew she was going to work there and make herself a life.
She still remembered how she felt when she realized the town was practically run by bikers. It had both terrified and excited her, but now it was just the norm. She saw the way business was conducted. She immersed herself with them and their ways, and she embraced it with open arms.
She enjoyed her job, even if it did involve removing her clothes for cash. She loved the people she had met while she had been here. The only thing she despised, was her apartment and the vile people that occupied the rest of the building.
“This is the third day in a row you’re not going to get any sleep,” she mumbled before she sighed and swung her feet over the side of the bed.
She rubbed her eyes and stretched her arms high over her head to try and bring herself back into the land of the living. She hadn’t gotten home until seven am, after she had danced all night and worked a room full of truckers and bikers. Her muscles were sore, and her mind was weary. All she wanted to do was rest, but the couple below were obviously not going to let her.
She pulled the blankets up on the bed and made it look as tidy as her tired mind could manage. And then she opened the door and slinked down the hallway to her front room.
She flicked on the TV and raised the volume as high as it would go to drown out the noise of World War Three downstairs before she flopped down on the couch and kicked her feet up.
“Some people,” she said as she stifled a yawn, “just have no manners or class.”
She half watched the documentary that was flashing before her. It wasn’t long before her vision blurred, as her eyelids fell. The couple below were still screaming and causing the building to shake, but there on the comfort of the couch, with the presenter’s voice diluting the sounds of fury, Star finally felt herself begin to relax into sleep.
She woke with a start when the TV clicked off on its timer, and the room was plunged into silence. Star sat up quickly and looked around, blinking and trying to make sense of where she was and what had happened. As her mind started to awaken and remember, she rolled her eyes and sank back into the comfy cushions of the couch.
“I need to move,” she whispered to herself. “This isn’t a healthy environment.”
She looked around the room at all she had done with the place since she had moved in. She had painted the battered and dirty walls to make them look fresh and bright. She had covered the old flooring with a large, plush rug. But below the décor, she still knew the place was a dive, and it was starting to grate on her.
She earned good money working at Tanners, and she could easily afford somewhere better. She had arrived in town with barely ten dollars in her purse, and she had been afraid. After she managed to secure the apartment, she had decided to stay. But over six months had passed, and she knew now that it was time to move on.
She reached for her laptop from the coffee table, opened it up and pressed the button to bring it to life. She rubbed her eyes. She hadn’t slept for long, maybe only three hours, but it would have to do.
She pulled open a search engine, typed in Slate Springs Rentals and waited for the results to flood in front of her. A selection of bigger homes and other apartments closer to Main Street started to appear. She scanned them as she chewed her bottom lip and let her mind begin to wander.
“Not much for you really,” she whispered. “You don’t exactly need a four-bedroom ranch.”
She sighed and closed the laptop lid.
“Ask around at work,” she told herself as she forced herself to her feet. “Those bikers own and know everything.”
She dragged herself over to the kitchen counter and started to boil some water, as she looked out of the window at the bad side of town. When she had come to Slate Springs, she hadn’t a clue of where was good and where was worth staying away from. She had certainly wandered onto the wrong side of the tracks.
Outside, burned out, skeletal cars lined the streets. She was sure she could see the shadow of a hobo hunched in the doorway of a derelict building.
“Okay,” she told herself, “enough is enough.” She nodded her head confidently and crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re going to be out of here before the end of next week,” she said sternly. “It’s time to find somewhere you’re not afraid to be at night, and can finally sleep undisturbed.”
Even though she just promised herself, it already felt like a step in the right direction. It was a mantra she would keep repeating until it became a reality. She had made her decision, and she was going to make it happen. She wasn’t going to live somewhere she wasn’t happy anymore, she was going to get closer to the center of town, and she was going to enjoy setting up home in a new place.
She felt a rush of excitement and a sense of achievement. It felt damned good to be in charge of her own life, with no one to tell her otherwise. She reached for a mug and made herself a strong coffee before she skipped back to her bedroom and threw open the closet doors.
For a girl who was running on barely ten hours sleep over two days, she felt remarkably chipper now that she had a goal and something to focus on. She grinned from ear to ear as she rifled through her outfits and pulled out some of her skimpiest bikinis and skirts, shoving them into her backpack to take to the club.
“Today marks a turning point, Star,” she told herself. “Today is, as they say, the first day of the rest of your life.”
She sipped her coffee and hugged an arm around herself.
She was on her way, and nobody was going to stop her.