The Annoying Sleepwalker Chapter 01
My roommate sleepwalks in the middle of the night.
She doesn’t walk into walls.
She doesn’t wander aimlessly around the room.
Every single time, she goes straight to my desk.
She smashed my laptop.
She poured Coke all over my external hard drive.
She cut up the suit I’d bought for interviews.
The last time this happened, everyone told me to let it go.
“She didn’t do it on purpose.”
“She’s sick, you know that.”
“You can always buy new things.”
“Don’t push her. She’s already in a bad place.”
So I backed down.
Later, the internship portfolio I’d spent three months preparing was destroyed while she was “sleepwalking” again.
I missed my final-round interview.
When I confronted her, she twisted it around, claiming I was bullying a roommate with a sleep disorder.
She even posted on the campus forum, painting me as the villain.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day she first “sleepwalked” and smashed my laptop.
This time, I wasn’t going to argue with her.
I was just going to put the most expensive things owned by everyone who told me to let it go right on my desk.
…
*Bang.*
A dull thud jolted the entire room awake.
I shot upright in bed, my heart hammering against my ribs.
I looked down.
My laptop was on the floor.
The screen was cracked. Next to it, a cup of Coke lay on its side, the dark liquid seeping straight into the keyboard.
Sweet, sticky soda dripped from the black casing.
Blair Hawthorne stood barefoot beside my desk.
Her hair was a mess, her eyes vacant.
Slowly, she crouched down, wrapped her arms around herself, and started to cry.
“Did I… did I sleepwalk again?”
“Brigid, I’m so sorry. I really didn’t know.”
“I wasn’t aware of anything. I didn’t mean to…”
I stared at the laptop on the floor.
I’d bought it with the money I earned waiting tables the summer after high school graduation, plus every dollar I’d managed to save my freshman year.
Even then, all I could afford was a used one from a resale site.
It held my course project files.
My internship portfolio.
All the materials for my scholarship application.
Last time, it happened on this exact night.
Blair “sleepwalked” for the first time and smashed my computer.
Back then, I’d demanded she pay for it.
She cried so hard she couldn’t string a sentence together.
Tessa was the first to scramble down from the top bunk and pull me back.
“Brigid, look at her. Just stop for now.”
Mallory had frowned, too.
“People who sleepwalk can’t control themselves.”
“What’s the point of yelling at her right now?”
The next day, our RA, Genevieve, wrote in the floor’s group chat:
“Try to handle roommate issues among yourselves first.”
“Don’t go straight to the student life office.”
So I backed down.
Then came the second time. And the third.
My external hard drive was soaked in soda.
The suit I was supposed to wear for interviews was slashed.
The textbook I needed for class was ripped to shreds.
In the end, even the internship portfolio I’d spent a month perfecting was gone.
I missed the internship interview and lost my scholarship eligibility.
And Blair posted about it on Yik Yak.
She said I’d been bullying a roommate with a sleep disorder for months.
A flood of people called me heartless.
They said things could always be replaced.
But if a person was pushed into a crisis, that would be so much worse.
No one asked where my money was supposed to come from.
No one asked who was going to compensate me for the opportunities I lost that year.
My hands went cold just thinking about it.
Tessa was already out of bed.
She glanced at the laptop on the floor, then at Blair, who was trembling and sobbing, and let out a sigh.
“Brigid, maybe just let it go for now?”
“She looks like a wreck.”
Mallory sat on the edge of her bed, her tone sharp.
“Yeah. Can we not make a huge scene in the middle of the night?”
“See if the laptop can be fixed first.”
“Don’t just jump to demanding money.”
“It’s not like she smashed it while she was awake.”
Last time, this was exactly how it started.
Word by word, sentence by sentence, they wore me down into silence.
They said I was too calculating.
That I had no empathy.
That I was persecuting someone who was sick.
But all I wanted was to be compensated for what I’d lost.
Blair’s crying grew louder.
“I really didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Brigid, I don’t know why I’m like this.”
“Please don’t push me. I already feel awful.”
I looked at her.
There was no broken glass by her feet.
She climbed out of her bed and stepped around Tessa’s chair.
She passed Mallory’s storage bin, crossed the room, and walked straight to my desk.
Then she knocked only my laptop to the floor.
I threw back my blanket, got out of bed, and picked it up.
The screen was dead.
Coke dripped between the cracks in the keyboard.
I took a deep breath and swallowed the words rising in my throat.
“I understand.”
I set the broken laptop back on the desk and pulled out a tissue.
Slowly, I wiped the sticky liquid from the casing.
“Since you all think sleepwalking is uncontrollable, I won’t say anything else.”
Tessa visibly relaxed.
“That’s better. We all have to live together.”
Mallory lay back down.
“There. Problem solved. Let’s get some sleep. We have class tomorrow.”
Blair lowered her head, but I saw the corner of her mouth twitch into a smirk before she could hide it.
That wasn’t guilt.
She thought she’d gotten away with it again.
I stood at my desk, staring at the black screen, a cold calm settling over me.
This time, I wasn’t going to argue about whether she was faking it.
And I wasn’t going to beg anyone for their understanding.
They wouldn’t listen. So I would let them experience it for themselves.