The California sun shone down on my face. I pulled my Kia into the empty driveway ahead of me. My new home was a two story suburban house in a well respected neighborhood. Although the houses were cramped together and the yards were small, there were some lovely flowers and tall trees.
I looked down the road, all of the houses were exactly the same, beautiful, yet unoriginal. I imagined what the man who designed these houses was thinking, making them all identical.
And sure, the yard was small, but the house was large and spacious, it had a cozy feel to it. The first floor consisted of a large living room, a kitchen, dining room and a bathroom. On the second floor were two bedrooms, an office, and a master bathroom. From the window in the bedroom I chose I could see into the bedroom of the neighbor to my left.
All in all, the house was really great and I began settling in right away. I unpacked box after box of all the things that didn't arrive in the moving van. I was really excited because this was my first home.
Right out of college, I found a job at a public highschool on Northern California as an English Literature teacher and spent a year living in a cramped apartment on the bad side of Sacramento. Finally, before my second year of teaching began, I felt I'd saved enough money to invest into a house, so I did.
In the boxes were a lot of things I'd forgotten about, like my picture collage that hung above my bed for four years in college, collections that I started but never completed as a kid, and of course, my old bong that I bought from a Mediterranean restaurant during a trip to New Orleans in college.
As I was unpacking the last box (of bath towels), when a man came running past and I accidentally ran into him, knocking the box from my hands and throwing navy blue towels everywhere. The guy immediately dropped to his knees and began collecting the towels in his arms, "I am so sorry, like, so sorry," he had a kind of deep, masculine voice that you hear on audio tapes.
When he finally finished collecting the towels, he looked up and I found a (very) attractive face staring back at me. From the thick, black hair to the slender nose between his big brown eyes, this guy had it going on.
"No, it's fine," I found myself blushing from staring too long. It was all just very awkward.
"So, you're the new neighbor, huh?" He quirked, "I'm Theodore, I live next door with my uncle."
"Oh, um hi, I'm Shae. Have you lived here awhile?"
"No," he answered, "I've actually just moved in with my uncle a few weeks ago. I came here to California from North Dakota," I sorta just stood there nodding my head thoughtfully.
Awkward silence.
"Well," he said, "I've got to get going, nice meeting you, Shae," and with that,he resumed his jog.
