Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 80969 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80969 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
It’s so quiet. I’ve never known peace like it.
It’s a soothing kind of silence. The kind that wraps you up and cocoons you.
It’s perfect.
It’s everything.
I take a sip of my tea, and then I hear Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” start to play from the neighboring house on my right.
I love this song. I don’t even care that it’s infiltrated my peace. If anything, it makes me smile.
My new neighbor has great taste in music.
Softly singing along to the lyrics, I glance over at my neighbor’s place. I noticed the house earlier. It’s hard not to. It’s huge. It takes up most of the end of the street. It’s a big, old colonial-style house. Without a doubt, it’s the largest house on the street. It has one of those gorgeous wraparound porches, and the back part of the porch is visible from where I’m standing. I can see into the garden, too, and there’s a pool out there. The garden is about twenty times the size of this one. There’s a brick building, too. Probably a garage or work shed.
I wonder who lives there.
A house that size with a swimming pool, they’re definitely wealthy. Maybe they’ve got kids. Young kids would be great because the baby would have someone to play with when it got a bit older.
Happiness warms my stomach at the thought that I could—no, that I will be here in years, watching my child grow, free of the past, and the baby will never know what my life was like before here.
I start humming along with Queen.
Then, I hear a screen door slam shut, and I bring my eyes to the sound.
There’s a guy out on the back porch of the house. He’s really tall from what I can tell. He has a head full of wavy, dark hair. I catch a glimpse of copper in it when he moves, the sunlight catching and highlighting the russet strands. It’s shaved on the sides and long on the top. His chin is covered in what looks to be a good few days’ worth of stubble.
Neil would never have stubble. He said it looked scruffy.
I like stubble and beards. I never told Neil that though. Opinions weren’t something I was allowed to have.
One of my foster dads, Henry, had a beard. He was my favorite foster dad. A genuinely nice man. His beard was white though. Reminded me of Santa’s beard.
He died though. He was old, to be fair. After he passed away, I continued living with Sandra, his wife. But then she followed him a year later.
I think her heart broke the day he died, and it never recovered.
I was moved to a new foster family.
So, yeah, beards give me a warm feeling inside.
From here, I can’t tell how old my new neighbor is. I’d say, definitely under thirty. He has tattoos. Both arms are covered in them. His black T-shirt shows them off nicely.
Neil didn’t like tattoos either.
He said tattoos and criminality went together hand in hand.
Neil still lived in the 1950s.
As Neil would say, my new neighbor looks like the kind of guy he puts in jail every day.
That means, he’s probably nicer than my husband.
Sorry, my ex-husband.
Wow. That feels freeing, calling him that.
Not that I’ll ever be able to divorce him. Not without alerting him to where I am, which I will never do. But I’m away from him, and that’s all that matters.
I’m here, in my new home, starting my new life.
And my new neighbor is a walking version of everything that Neil doesn’t like.
It makes me like him instantly.
My eyes move down to his hands, and I see a book in one and a glass of something in the other. He has what appears to be a cigar case tucked under his arm.
I watch as he puts the glass and cigar case down on the table. Then, he gets something out from one of his front pockets of his black jeans and tosses it onto the table—probably a lighter.
Then, without warning, he turns in my direction, catching me staring.
Fudgesicles.
I feel my face start to heat.
I’m going to have to say something; otherwise, I’m just going to look like a creeper.
I straighten up and lift my hand in greeting. “Hi.” I smile.
He doesn’t respond. Maybe he didn’t hear me.
I speak louder this time, “I’m your new neighbor, An—” Fudge. “Carrie. My name is Carrie.”
I get nothing.
He’s just standing there, staring at me.
His eyes are dark and intense.
And hard.
Cold.
A chill slithers through me, all the warmth I was feeling a moment ago disappearing.
I shift on my bare feet. I don’t know what to do. Do I just go back inside? But that would be rude.
But he’s being rude, ignoring me.
Maybe he isn’t actually ignoring me, and he really just can’t hear me from all the way over there.