Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Giving an Inch, Taking a Mile

Over the next two weeks, Mrs. Gable didn't just ignore me―she doubled down. The shoe rack grew taller. She replaced it with a massive, three-tier mahogany-colored cabinet that smelled like cheap lacquer.

Two more large cardboard boxes appeared next to the stroller, overflowing with old clothes and empty glass bottles. The plastic bags multiplied. Now, I could tell exactly what was in them. One bag had expired snacks, another had old baby clothes, and a third contained rotting fruit.

Dark purple juice was leaking out of the fruit bag, staining the floor tiles. Every day, the path grew narrower. I had to play a real-life version of Tetris just to get to my front door.

One evening, I was carrying groceries home. A bag caught on the corner of her shoe rack and tore open. A carton of eggs hit the floor, shattering everywhere. Yellow yolks and white slime smeared across the hallway.

As I was cleaning it up, her door creaked open. Mrs. Gable poked her head out and looked at the mess. Then, she laughed. “Serves you right. If you want more space, go buy a mansion.”

The worst incident happened on a Saturday afternoon. I woke up from a nap and tried to head out for some water. I pushed the door, but it wouldn't budge. Something was blocking it from the outside.

I looked through the peephole. Mrs. Gable was standing in the hall, talking loudly on her phone. She never bothered to lower her voice; she treated the hallway like her personal megaphone.

“What’s there to worry about? She’s just a little renter girl,” she scoffed into the phone. “I’ve seen her type a thousand times. They stay for a year or two and then vanish. What can she possibly do to me? I’ve been here twelve years. Even the manager respects me. She’s just a brat who doesn't understand how neighbors are supposed to be considerate.”

Considerate. When that word came out of her mouth, I smiled behind the door. It wasn't a happy smile. It was the cold grin of someone who had reached their limit.

To her, being considerate was a one-way street. I was supposed to tolerate her taking my space, blocking my door, and drilling holes in my wall. Her version of “consideration” was telling me to move out if I didn't like her breaking the law.

It got even more ridiculous. She started spreading rumors about me. She told other neighbors I was a slob. “That girl across from me piles her trash outside every day. The whole hall smells like old takeout,” she claimed. In reality, I never left a single bag of trash outside.

She told people my “noise” made her grandson cry. “She blasts music until the whole building shakes at midnight,” she lied. I’d lived there for two years and didn't even own a speaker system. My only music was from my phone at low volume.

My mom was the one who told me all this. She goes to the community park every morning to do Tai Chi with the other seniors. They didn't realize she was my mother because we have different last names―I took my father’s.

Every day, my mom heard the latest gossip about her own daughter. She would come home with a face like stone, but she never lost her cool. She knew me, and she knew how toxic rumors could be.

“Honey, what are you going to do?” she asked.

I wrung out my cleaning rag and hung it up. “Don't worry, Mom. Let the bullet fly for a bit. The longer it flies, the louder the impact will be. I don't want to win an argument. I want her to tear down that wall herself, brick by brick. By the time I'm done, she won't even have the breath left to cry.”