Fifty Reasons to Stay (Book Three)

Chapter Forty Three- Strange

(Donnie's POV)
I don't remember much about the morning we moved into the new house. All our stuff from the old house was transported all the way to New York, which cost an arm and a leg, but we had enough thanks to Leo's dad's posthumous deeds.

I think I spent the first afternoon rebuilding beds incorrectly until Leo took over, then I just busied myself with other things. I took Teresa across the street to the playground while Andrew stayed home and helped Leo. School started for him the next day. However, I found August 17th to be incredibly too early. We didn't even have the things he'd need, but I was going to take him later in the day.

There weren't any people in the park except for the young couple that lived next door to us. I thought about saying hi, but I'm a shy person and they didn't look as friendly as I'd hoped.

But there were plenty of families in this neighborhood. I just needed to wave around a rainbow flag until I could catch the attention of one like us. Either that or use an incense lure like they do in Pokemon Go, only instead of catching Pokémon I'd catch gays.

Yeah, that probably wouldn't work.
Oh well.

I glanced back at the house, biting my lip as I always did when I was thinking. I liked that the front yard was fenced in. I liked the white fence. I thought about planting flowers on the outside of the fence, but people would probably purposely go off the sidewalk just to step on them.

"Did you just move in?" The woman who'd walked away from her husband was now right in front of me. "I'm Jackie."

"Uh... yes we did. And, I'm Donnie." I smiled nervously, stuffing my hands into my jean pockets so she wouldn't notice my scar.

"Where are you from? Wait, let me guess. The big city, right?" Her smile was absolutely contagious. She had such a friendly aura.

"How'd you guess?"

"You can't hide that accent. I grew up in Brooklyn, I know it well." She folded her arms. She was slim but fit. Couldn't be thirty yet.

"You're from Brooklyn? Me too, but I haven't lived there in years. I moved to Portland for a while. I thought my accent was gone." Like I didn't even know I had an accent...?

"Well, that's great. Are you married?"
Oh no.

"Yes..." I stared at Teresa and started to walk over to her. "But sorry, I have to go. It was nice meeting you."

"Donnie, wait–" she caught my arm, eyes concerned. "I know. It's okay, we don't care here."
I wasn't convinced. "That's what they said in my old neighborhood." Flashbacks of cold glares, repainting the side of the house after cruel pranks presumably by teenagers.. yeah.

"Yeah, well this area isn't exactly dominated by homosexual relationships, but this part of the neighborhood is. We're all totally used to it." She pointed towards a greenish house down the road a bit. "Those are the Matthews. Tom and Richie. They've got two boys, twins, eight years old." Jackie faced the opposite direction and pointed again at a faint pink house that was closer to ours. "Middleton family lives there. Sarah and Maggie. They've got a little girl... and behind your house, maybe diagonal to you, actually.. there's two college boys who are dating, and right down from them– I think anyway, the Reynolds. They're a bit older than you two, but they raise their granddaughter Phoebe, and she's about your daughter's age."

"Really? And that doesn't... Bother you?" Because it bothered my old neighbors. Most hated us. Ignored. Mistreated. Most of the world hated us.
"Hell no. They're good people. And I'm sure you guys are too.. I can tell." Jackie picked up her water bottle from the picnic table. "Well, I have to go teach a class at the gym. I'll see you around, okay?"