The Boy Across the Street

Chapter One

Chapter One

He’s looked at me once before in my entire life. The day that I moved into my new house. The day Leslie drove me “home.” The day after the funeral. 

I stepped out of her car and looked around - at perfectly groomed bushes, monotonously cut lawns, trees that looked eerily similar to every single feel good family movie on Hallmark. I turned 360 degrees and it was clear that one thing didn’t fit.

That one thing was his house with its peeling yellow paint and rotting front porch and quickly escalating safari grass lawn. It wasn’t hard for my eyes to find the sore thumb of the street or the piercing blue eyes of the boy staring accusingly back at me.

A little blond haired boy with threadbare clothes playing with sticks in his front yard. He ran back inside his house and the screech of the front door was deafening. It deafened me because I didn’t hear my sister call out to me to grab some bags and take them inside.

I’ve seen him many times since then. From my window. From my front porch. I’ve watched him while sipping iced tea and hot chocolate and while shoveling snow and raking leaves and bathing in the sun. I see him at school.

I always know when we’re in the same room. I don’t even have to see him come in. I feel it. I search for him. My gaze always lingers too long, and I’m afraid one day I’ll get caught - but he never looks my way. 

Not since that day.

And not a word has ever been spoken between us.

Until today.

“Don’t you dare say a word of this to anyone.”His bloodied face and swollen lip is not how I imagined this moment happening.

“I won’t,” I whisper.

An intense shiver crawls down my spine and I tell myself it’s from the cold snow under my bare feet and the chilling wind that’s whipping my hair wildly no matter how many times I tuck the strands behind my ears - anything but the pure hatred radiating from the only boy whose ever made my heart soar so high into the sky I’m surprised it hasn’t grown wings.

Bradbury hesitates before lowering his finger that was pointing at my chest and takes two tentative steps backwards. “Then go back inside.”

“Are you okay?” The words tumble from my lips without permission, but I decide I don’t regret them. I don’t think I would have been able to stop myself from asking.

“Just go back inside,” he repeats again softly.

“But, I-I mean, I just-,” I’m not really sure what I’m trying to say. Frustration bubbles in my chest and tears prickle my vision. I have to look away before he sees.

“Forget tonight ever happened, Sarah.”

Sarah.

He knows my name.

My heartbeat stops, and if breathing was hard before - I had no idea how good I really had it.

Please say it again.

I hear his bike suddenly roar to life and I jump back in surprise. When did he walk away? Now he’s screeching past his mailbox and races down the street out of sight.

I continue to stand, confused, in the snow and I slowly begin to lose feeling in my hands and toes. Images race through my mind and closing my eyes only makes them worse - makes them so much more vivid. 

Bradbury’s father. Pure rage. Arm winding back, fist balled, and striking Bradbury square in the jar. My choked scream drowned out by the thud of Bradbury hitting the ground. I don’t want to still see the way he curled in on his side and gripped his face. I don’t want to see him kicked in the stomach. I don’t want to know just how many times this has happened before.

And the stepfather never noticed me - he was too drunk, or high, or both. But he left Bradbury shaking on the ground and sometime during this intermission did I find myself moving forwards and alerted that beautiful boy who just ran away from me to look up.

I don’t want to still see that look of fear in his eyes. Was he scared that his step-father was coming back? Or because someone had finally seen. 

Classmates have noticed his black eyes. Teachers have noticed his random bruises. He tried to play it off, but I noticed him limping once last year. And yet, no one ever said anything. 

He wears band shirts and an old leather jacket and won’t hesitate to punch a jock in the face. Boys fight, you know. And with a boy like him, people don’t even blink.

“Don’t you dare say a word of this to anyone.”

Who would I tell?

Who would care?