Chloe doesn't want diamonds. She doesn't want rubies.

All Chloe wants is sleep. To rest her head, close her heavy eyes, and knock out until she wakes with a headache from sleeping too much.

(And yeah, sure, maybe diamonds and rubies are nice too, but her sanity is ranking first place at the moment.)

That's all.

But - of course - the universe has its way of making sure most of Chloe's wishes are left to wither away like a plant without water. Often, it grants her with the exact opposite of what she wants instead. But, who is she to question whichever greater being it is who's spending their valuable time trying to get her to shake her fist towards the heavens in anger? Only, she never allows said greater being the satisfaction. She considers herself to be blessed with eternal optimism, and even after getting an average of four hours of sleep per night, she still makes sure to jump out of bed every day, welcoming the day with a glowing complexion.

What can she say? It's a gift; and it sure as hell makes life much more enjoyable.

"Hothouse" by 78Violet had jerked her awake around six-thirty that morning, and she spent the first half of her day attending classes: two hours in Creative Writing I and one and a half godforsaken hours in Pre-Calculus. Yuck.

Yes, she has a knack for looking at the glass half full. But…math! Need she say more?

There is nothing anyone on this planet could tell her that would convince her taking a mathematics course would be beneficial to her. She has a strong belief that math was designed to torture innocent youths and destroy hard-earned GPAs, and wants nothing more to do with it now than she did when she was in high school. She'd decided quite early on that she was going to be an English major, and knows for damn sure that she does not need to know the inverse of cosine in order to write creatively or analytically.

Class was followed by a seven hour shift at Home Depot. It is important to note that she has nothing against home improvement or outdoorsy activities, or whatever else Home Depot represents - in fact, she loves architectural and interior design, nature, and all those dandy things that help make up the world. All of it supplies inspiration aplenty and can be calming under the correct circumstances. This admiration does not, contrary to customer belief, mean that she is knowledgeable in the care requirements for each and every plant on the patio, nor does she know the distinguishable differences between brands of wrenches. She supposes she should know such things, because she does work there, and it's probably part of her job to know them. But why memorize that, when she could be learning another Robert Frost poem? She could quit – she's fully aware of that. But at this point, the wage and benefits are too good for her to leave for a minimum wage job elsewhere. Plus, her coworkers are fun enough to make each shift bearable.

After clocking out, she drove home and jumped in the shower to scrub the lingering earthy odor off her body and out of her hair, not bothering to dry or brush it. She mummified herself in her bedsheets and comforter, and was fully prepared to hibernate for a solid twelve hours.

And she was almost there. Almost unconscious.

Until a deep, muffled explosion sent her second floor townhouse apartment into a fit similar to that which would be caused by an earthquake reaching at least a three on the Richter scale.

Her bed rattles and shakes her awake, and coconut scented body lotions dive off her dresser. She hears the clicking of push pins landing on the wooden floor, followed by the folding of paper as her favorite poster (the one with Pride and Prejudice scrawled across it beside the silhouettes of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy) comes fluttering down on top of her.

Chloe doesn't panic. Oddly enough, this is not the first time this has happened. It's a strange idea to ponder: this is not the first time she has been woken up in the middle of the night via violent tremor. Which is actually...kind of frustrating.

Why couldn't she have normal neighbor who wants to sleep as much as she does? Or at least get a healthy eight hours? Why does her neighbor have to be a brainiac obsessed with physics and lasers and chemicals? Why does her neighbor have to set off explosions on a somewhat frequent basis?

The first time Chloe heard on of the experiments take place, she jumped out of her skin and nearly hyperventilated, thinking she was going to be crushed under her collapsing townhouse. She sat wide-eyed on her bed with her phone clutched in her hands, 911 dialed on the screen and ready to be called, until a cheer echoed up to her ears. It was the strangest thing. The high pitched voice sounded genuinely excited…and Chloe was not sure she wanted to know why. But, it did make her feel better; like she should not currently be fearing for her life. A relief trickled through her, just enough to calm her breathing. She had forced herself back under the sheets and laid in the dark, listening intently to the occasional clinking or beeping, until sleep overtook the confusion.

She had come to adjust to the wildcards her neighbor tossed on the table; sometimes there was the explosion, always displacing a number of her belongings. Other times, there were little bursts of fizzing, zaps, and sparking noises. Every once in a while, she even recognized the clanging of hammers on nails and the eventual humming of an active unknown machine.

The worst - the moments when fear glued Chloe to one spot – occurred when a disappointed whine or angry snarl reached her ears after whatever trial had just taken place. Unhappy noises coming from below had to mean that something had not gone according to plan, and that usually led to Chloe having nightmares about waking up with a third arm or being transported to the eighteenth century.

Which, obviously, never happened.

Tonight, however, Chloe was not scared, nor was she relieved to hear the whoop that followed. Chloe's day had felt like an entire year, and she needs her rest. Chloe needs tonight to not be one filled with explosions.

Chloe is, simply, pissed off. And pissed off Chloe does not know how to deal with the foreign emotion.

With an angry, bellicose growl and an embarrassingly long struggle of pushing and pulling and kicking at sheets, she finally wiggles free and launches herself (and the poster) to the floor. She could be upset about that later, but right now, she's on a mission. She pulls on a pair of running shorts and jams her sockless feet into a pair of black Chucks without bothering to tie them or tuck the laces away, and actually manages not to trip on anything on her rampage out the door.

The idea of making herself presentable had entered her mind, solely for intimidation, or possibly flirty persuasion into not conducting experiments past ten, but the thought wasn't current long enough for her to do anything about it...though she probably should have done something. She can feel her damp hair curling around her cheeks and knows it is probably matted in the back from where her head shifted left and right on her pillow. She also hadn't bothered to wipe the black remanences of her eyeliner off after she'd washed her face, so she's fully aware of the terrifying case of raccoon eye she has right about now.

Flirty persuasion was out, but she could be intimidating if she looked like a sleep deprived head case, right?

Sometimes Chloe has to mentally slap her wrist for not calling the authorities that first night, following that first explosion, because now she has a mad scientist for a neighbor, and feels some sort of companionship to said mad scientist for no valid reason. She doesn't even know her name – she doesn't even know why she assumes they are female. She does, however, feel like they share some unspoken secret. Kind of like, 'I won't tell about your explosions if you don't tell about me playing my music too loud,' which makes Chloe feel incredibly bland when she really dwells on it. Her neighbor is living. Living dangerously and crazily, but still living nonetheless. And there she is every day, ignoring her math homework as she sings along to America's Top 100 on Spotify while balancing pencils on the bridge of her nose.

Mostly, though, she doesn't think she could forgive herself if she had to watch her neighbor be carried away in a strait jacket.

Tonight, Chloe hit a breaking point and could not and would not deal with it. Her restraint nowhere to be found, within six seconds she was down the stairs and was banging rapidly with both fists on the first floor apartment door, having full intentions of breaking through the wood if no one opened it soon.

They hadn't been neighbors for a very long time, maybe a few months. Chloe remembered waking up one morning to see the "For Rent: Townhouse, First Floor Apartment" sign gone, and a moving van parked out front. It was a large van, and seemed a bit excessive. The apartments weren't that expansive. Chloe could barely fit her small collection of furniture in the household comfortably. A bed and dresser filled her room, with a few book and music posters hung about, and one picture of she and her best friend Aubrey rested in a frame on her dresser. A small table and two chairs stood in the kitchen with the built-in refrigerator and stove. Lastly, a single three seater couch (a hand-me-down from her older sister) accompanied with a wooden coffee table sat in the main room. Her desk was in the only sufficiently roomy space available, adjacent to the window next to the front door. She had paintings she found for a bargain at Kirklands and more picture frames encasing images of her family and some friends up on the walls, which were – fortunately - a nice sky-blue color.

The moving van was gone by the time Chloe had gotten home later that same evening. It was unusual of her to not have introduced herself that night, nor any night after. She'd always assumed that when the neighbor finally moved in, she'd be there with a welcoming smile and some cliché fresh bakes cookies. Yet, per the Universe's order, school, work, and life in general had gotten in her way, making her selfish with her sparse free time. By the time she was ready to introduce herself, the experiments began, and she supposed it was fear of being caught in the crossfire of a laser beam that kept her away.

Since her neighbor was always doing...science-y...stuff...Chloe had never even seen the girl. Girl? All she knew was that the person's initials were B.M, and she only knew that because she had accidentally been delivered a very formal looking piece of her mail one time. (She thought about it for a while, giving her neighbor names to match: Beth Michaels. Benjamin Moore. Brittany Martinez. Eventually she ran out of last names and lost interest.) Chloe had silently wedged it in the crack between the door and the jamb and retreated back to her room before she was caught.

Finally, she was brought back to the present with the opining of the door.

In front of her stood a girl - definitely a girl - about her age, shorter than her by a few inches, with disheveled brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, many strands fraying out messily. She wore black rimmed glasses and a white lab coat over a pair of jeans and a black V-neck. There was a smudge of some black substance on parts of her face and scuffs on her coat. She looked at Chloe with annoyed pursed lips, and suddenly Chloe was hyperaware of her indecent shorts and smudgy eyes. She'd also ran out of her room without a bra on. Fan-tastic.

"Hey," the girl greeted, squinting her eyes with a slight furrowing of her brows, eyeing Chloe's appearance. "What's up?"

And Chloe literally forgets what words are. These moments are rare for Chloe. She guesses this was what it's like to be tongue-tied; typically, she's the one causing others stumble over their words through purposely flirtatious winks and seemingly innocent phrases that, in fact, suggest so much more. After being on the other side and experiencing the awkward helplessness, she's going to hesitate putting anyone else in this position ever again. She expected many things of her neighbor's appearance, but definitely not this. The girl belongs in magazines, Chloe thinks, not locked up in her apartment with…with whatever it is she has in there!

"Uh. Um. I'm Chloe. I live upstairs."

The girl's expression remains unchanged, and her voice offers no hint of emotion. "Oh. Okay. Cool."

Okay? Cool? No, it was not okay, nor was it cool. How rude. "I heard an explosion…" Chloe crosses her arms high on her chest. Note to self: never leave the house without the proper undergarments.

The girl sighs and her face contorts in frustration, reminding Chloe of how she used to act when her parents wouldn't let her go out on Friday nights. It seems childish, and is quite off-putting. Then again, she is already annoyed, and anything the girl is to do or say right now, if not thought through carefully, is going to further push Chloe's buttons. Even if she is ridiculously intrigued by the girl. The brunette pulls the glasses off of her face and busied herself cleaning them with the bottom of her shirt. "Yeah, I know. I screwed something up with my measurements. Too much nitroglycerin or something."

She's completely missing the point. And why does she expect Chloe to know what nitroglycerin is? "I...I'm sorry?" Her curiosity is brimming and her eyes can't stop roaming, but her patience is plummeting. She shakes her head of the fog building, getting back to business. "Do you know what time it is?"

"Erm...no." The brunette admits, having the decency to shrink into herself a little as she continues. "But I'm guessing by...well, everything, that it's not an appropriate time for me to be setting off explosions."

Chloe coughs out an abrasive laugh and chomps down on her inner cheek. "No. It is not an appropriate time to be setting off explosions. I'm so glad you were able to come to that conclusion all by yourself." It's out before Chloe can soften her words and tone.

The brunette frowns and visibly tenses up, her jaw tightening. Chloe now notices the dark circles beneath the girl's eyes, and almost regrets being so harsh. At least they had one thing in common. Though, lack of sleep wasn't necessarily a pleasant thing to share with another.

"I'm sorry," Chloe starts, shutting her eyes. "That was kind of harsh. I've just had a really long day, and-"

"Yeah," the girl interrupts quickly, an almost playful lilt to her voice, "You know what? You're right. Totally right. I'm so sorry." Her hands raise in surrender, then fall to hit her thighs with a smack. "This wasn't cool of me. Next time I'm a bother, feel free to come bang on my door in your pajamas. I shouldn't be getting in the way of anyone's much needed beauty sleep."

With that, she places the temple tip of her glasses between her teeth with a sarcastic smirk, oozing pride from the subtle insult she'd just delivered, and steps back to kick the door shut in Chloe's gaping face.

She was going to show her just what a few hours of beauty sleep could do.