"You're being a creep. Go talk to her."
The next morning, he woke up on her couch with charcoal on his hands and her sketchbook open to a drawing of him—asleep, peaceful, with a fourth eye drawn faintly on his forehead, just for symmetry.
"My brother. He was visiting that weekend. He's always been the friendly one. I was inside, probably scrolling through my phone, being my usual useless self."
"What?"
Eliot's heart thumped. "That wasn't me."
"Took you long enough," she said, and pulled him in by his shirt collar.
Eliot had lived in the same suburban cul-de-sac for sixteen years, so when the moving truck pulled up to the vacant house next door on a sticky August afternoon, he barely looked up from his laptop. New neighbors came and went. Nothing ever changed.
"I'm observing."
"You're being a creep. Go talk to her."
The next morning, he woke up on her couch with charcoal on his hands and her sketchbook open to a drawing of him—asleep, peaceful, with a fourth eye drawn faintly on his forehead, just for symmetry.
"My brother. He was visiting that weekend. He's always been the friendly one. I was inside, probably scrolling through my phone, being my usual useless self."
"What?"
Eliot's heart thumped. "That wasn't me."
"Took you long enough," she said, and pulled him in by his shirt collar.
Eliot had lived in the same suburban cul-de-sac for sixteen years, so when the moving truck pulled up to the vacant house next door on a sticky August afternoon, he barely looked up from his laptop. New neighbors came and went. Nothing ever changed.
"I'm observing."