Caleb's Neighbour

Chapter 1

I had just moved into my third house of the year. It was so annoying, tugging the boxes up the stairs, dumping them into a room that already looked like a dump,  peeling wallpaper and all. God it killed me. The way the cracks ran through the walls, the way my mom smiled and acted like she didn't notice. All of it was too familiar. This house looked exactly the same as the last, practically the same type of house build too, but that didn't stop my sister jumping in excitement when she saw it, barrelling her tiny fists as her hands and smashing them into my arm. I just laughed and smiled at her, you could tell that it didn't effect her as much as it did for me. The moving I mean. Three times in the last year, and before that, we had moved six times to different states. I hated starting off new somewhere, but I was trained now to know exactly what to do in every awkward first impression situation, so I guess it wasn't as sucky as before. 

'Caleb, your rooms the attic.' It was always the lousy attic, the one with the window that didn't open and the radiator that never worked when it was minus degrees out. I nodded to my mom, I didn't really need to say much - she already knew I was pissed, and made my way upstairs. My sister had a nice room like looked out onto the backyard, I wasn't jealous though. The attic was  just the attic, and as unbearable as it was, at least it was a bit more away from everything than my sisters room was. I got to the room in the end, it took a while though, I kept on dropping all the stuff I was holding on the way up. When I did get up there, I realised that the attic wasn't as bad as the rest of house. Instead, it was sorta alright for me. I walked over to the far side, where a big bookshelf was, it lined the wall, and I kind of liked it. I knew I'd find a way to fill it with all my books and random shit I brought from Indiana, so I guess it was okay. I just paced around the room for a while, I didn't know what to do next. The movers were coming in a couple hours, and the room was fine - usually I'd spend the time shuffling around things - but now there was nothing to  shuffle around, I ended up just sorta sitting there. On the floor I mean, it wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't unbearable, and besides, I didn't want to go downstairs and have to deal with my little sister. 

I ended up playing on my phone for a while, one of those really bad games that's repetitive as hell that you end up playing anyway out of bordem, well yeah, I was playing one of those for a while. The room was still dusty as hell though, even though I opened the windows a while after I came in. And I was still sitting on the floor, the carpet was slightly itchy too, and since I was wearing a t-shirt, I ended up putting my jacket back on. 

'Caleb! Come downstairs!' My mom shouted, but not loud enough, cause I only heard the tail end of what she said. I came downstairs anyway though, the attic and my game were starting to get pretty miserable. It had started to rain too, and I only just noticed that when I came down the stairs. Some people were at the door too, I noticed that after a couple of seconds though, I don't catch onto things that quick usually. I caught onto my mom acting completely differently though, her posture had changed since there were people around now, I didn't know what to think of it. She was also holding a dish in her hand, I knew what I thought about that though. Neighbours always bring around lasagne or potato salad as a welcoming gift. I never understood that, I mean, when you're sweaty and gross from lifting boxes all day and driving ten hours, the last thing you'd want was a crappy potato salad. We always got them though, and my mom always accepted them, probably knowing that they'd just sit in the fridge. 

'Hi, this is my son Caleb.' I had reached the door now, and shook hands like a gentleman with the older woman. I hated it. The way she smiled and stuff, and how obviously fake it was. I just tossed out a 'nice to meet you' and waited for her to start speaking. They always do. 

'Hi, we're the Papadakis.' The older woman smiled at me, and I realised that it wasn't just her there, she almost had this posse of kids behind her, It kind of creeped me out. She turned her body around, damn potato salad still in hand, and tried gesturing to her kids. From how they lined up, it looked like they were ready for war, I had to stop myself from laughing. Instead I just nodded to all of them, the three of them that I could actually see nodded back, and I just left it at that.