Wednesday night, well, Thursday morning at 4:18 am, I woke up. There was someone pounding on the door. Pounding. Trying to open the door and let himself in. And my boyfriend was standing in the dark buttoning a collared shirt. Wearing Dockers.
I grabbed a robe and headed down the stairs. The boy reminded me not to open the door to strangers.
"Who is it?" "Open the door." "Who's there?" "Please just open the door." (I looked in the peep hole and saw someone looking back, right at the peep hole full of attitude.) "What do you want?" "Please open the door." "What do you want?" "Is this Maggie and Ben's apartment?" "No." "Are Maggie and Ben here." "No." (this line of questioning continued for what felt like eons. I was watching him look at the apartment number and then at the peep hole. And then ask me again about Maggie and Ben.) "Is this Building Q?" "No, it's Building R." "Where's Building Q then?" "It's closer to the street." "Oh. I am so sorry. Really, sorry."
And then he left. And I called security to let them know that I sent someone hostile and creepy to the same apartment in another building. And then I spent thirty or forty-five minutes laying in bed trying to fall asleep and marvelling that I had forgotten what the guy looked like already.
The next morning, I did feel compelled to e mail my boyfriend from work and confirm that it had not been a nightmare. It wasn't.
And then tonight, I woke up at 4:13. The bathroom light was on. Someone was knocking on the door. The boy answered this time. It was one of the neighbor girls. I didn't see her, but she sounded like the girls next-door. Not a big deal.
Except, twice in four nights at roughly a quarter past four I've awakened because there was someone at our door. Someone not knockinga couple of times tentatively, like, "I hope I have the right apartment." Knocking like we were expecting them and they needed someone to wake up and get the damned door.
I would guess that if there is one way to solidly freak me right out, it's this. I mean, obviously there are scarier things and obviously there are things that would be more damaging to my psyche (and my physical well-being), but if you just wanted to turn me into a strange bunch of jangling nerves... this is how you'd do it.
I'm still drying off from finding myself drenched in sweat within seconds of waking up. I'm still freaked right the fuck out. I don't like this. I don't like waking up in my bed in what for me is the middle of the damned night, because someone is banging on my door unexpectantly. In all fairness, the neighbor didn't bang. She knocked.
It's starting to get light outside. I think once the sun really gets to rising, I'll be able to go back to sleep. I've turned the thermostat down so I know I'll want to get under the blankets and really relax. I'm going to go take my contacts out (I'm an irresponsible person who sleeps in her contacts pretty often.) so I won't have that distraction... I need to go back to sleep.
