Duets - 2. Chapter Two

The change was wasn’t gradual. It seemed almost overnight Matthew’s shower buddy changed his tune, so to speak. Matthew first noticed it one afternoon when his neighbor had his stereo in the living room cranked. His voice was just loud enough to hear, enthusiastic but almost broken. Seems his little buddy was having a bad day. He sounded pretty hopeless as he sang along to Nothing to Lose by Billy Talent. Matthew stood nearly frozen in place with a frown on his face. Sure it was a catchy song, but his buddy actually sounded pained. Matthew sighed as he pulled his door closed hoping there wasn’t anything seriously wrong.

When Matthew came home and hear Pain by Three Days Grace wafting through the walls from next door his sour mood intensified. Not out of annoyance for the loud music, it wasn’t even that loud and it definitely wasn’t late. After the sad (depressing, not bad quality) performance this morning Matthew was arguing with himself all day about whether or not he should knock on the door and see if he could do anything. He had been distracted and sloppy in his work and a little snippy with his co-workers. He had finally talked himself out of it when he realized how annoyed he was that these people who hardly knew him were sticking their nose in his business. Being grumpy isn’t an invitation to mettle. How would his neighbor feel about some strange guy sticking his nose in his business? They had never even met. Matthew knew, but would never admit, part of his sour mood was disappointment about not being able to justify using some emo music as an excuse to go meet his neighbor. Like he should have done when he first moved in.

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The next day his neighbor played through Through Glass by Stone Sour and Sound of Silence, the David Dreman version not Simon and Garfunkle like Matthew preferred, before Matthew had left for work. He was running late because he had waited almost 30 minutes for his neighbor to get in the shower so he could try to cheer him up with a duet.

That night Matthew sat in the bathroom in his underwear for an hour waiting for his neighbor to join him. He knew if he could just get some time with him he would be able to cheer his sort-of friend up. His listened to Break Stuff by Limp Bizkit and Broken by Seether and Amy Lee. By the time Everybody Hurts by REM came on Matthew came to the realization that he hadn’t heard his neighbour shower all week. Either he was avoiding showering while Matthew was home on purpose or something was so wrong he wasn’t showering at all.