Omega

Chapter 3

I felt my entire body tense up involuntarily at the sound of my name being spoken in that odd, low voice. It startled me, no doubt, but more than that, it electrified me. I felt the vibrations of his voice move from my fingertips, still on the door handle, all the way down to my toes and back again. 

Eyes wide against the darkening scene, I turned my head slowly to look into the eyes that I knew would be watching me from the wicker sofa at the end of the porch. Jade green, even in this light. 

"How did you get here?" I asked, my voice sounding much steadier than I felt. 

Adam didn't give an answer. He just sat there, one arm draped casually across the back of the sofa, the other propped against his chin. 

I swallowed and stepped towards him, crossing my arms across my chest. 

"I said, how did you get here?" I prompted again. 

In response, jade green eyes drifted towards the steps that led down to the shore and back again to settle on mine. 

I cocked an eyebrow and gave him a look. I refused to have a conversation with myself or play charades with an uninvited guest on my own back porch. If he could find his voice to say my name and scare me half to death, he could find it again to answer a simple question. 

When no actual answer came, I rolled my eyes (a bad habit I had picked up as a small child) and turned back towards the door. 

"I live next door." 

For the second time in thirty seconds, I felt a flash of numbness shoot through my body at the sound of his voice. I recovered faster this time and shot off my response without even looking at him. 

"That doesn't answer my question. How. Did. You. Get. Here." I leveled him with my best annoyed glare and added, "And why are you here?" 

Apparently he hadn't been expecting my acidic demeanor, because the hint of a smirk disappeared from his face as he considered me for a moment. 

"I just thought it would be nice to meet the neighbors," he said. His voice was steady, cautious. I almost felt bad for being so abrasive. Until he added, "I guess 'nice' and 'neighbor' is too much to expect from you." As he spoke, he stood up and took a couple steps towards me. 

My jaw dropped at the insult and I felt my face redden. 

"Excuse me?" I demanded, jamming my hands onto my hips and tossing my loosely braided hair over my shoulder. "For your information, your 'neighbor' is perfectly 'nice' to people who don't show up unannounced, on private property, in the dark." I put air quotes around neighbor and nice, and ticked off the problems with his visit on my fingers as I gestured around us. 

The smirk was back on his lips when I finished, and he said, "You talk with your hands a lot." 

I stared at him for a few seconds before letting out a frustrated sound and grabbing the door handle again. As I wrenched it open and ducked inside, I heard the self-satisfied laughter in his voice as he gave a sing-songy "G'night, neighbor."

Once inside, I leaned on the kitchen counter and drummed my fingernails against the cool granite, still irritated at this kid who thought he could just walk up on my porch and post up. So what if he was a new neighbor...

His words stuck in my head for a moment. "I live next door."  

There was only one house "next door" to ours, and calling it that was a bit of a stretch. The only other house on the peninsula was the Salter house a quarter of a mile inland. It was a three story feat of engineering that teetered on the edge of the cliff as if it would fall into the sound at any moment. When Senator Salter was alive, everyone avoided the house for fear of being targeted by his senile rages. It had remained vacant for a few years since he passed away, a popular site for teenagers messing around and the occasional petty crime. There was no way Adam was living there. 

Curiosity got the best of me and I ran up the stairs two at a time to look out the westward facing window. Against the perpetual glow of the Boston skyline I could see the angular outline of the house perched over the water's edge, and sure enough, several lights were on in and around it. I could just make out the shape of a large moving van between the trees. 

I leaned against the window frame watching the house and thoughts of my new neighbor drifted lazily in and out of my mind. I felt a smile start to form at the edges of my mouth at the thought of Adam being so close, and I bit the inside of my cheek to stop it. He might be cute and interesting, but he was also annoying and smug. I wasn't sure what to think. 

At sixteen I had barely ever even had a crush on a boy. Without friends to talk girl talk with, I missed out on a lot of the basics of becoming a teenager, and girly stuff wasn't exactly my mother's forte. Having a cute new boy close by could be kind of nice, I thought. At the very least he was the first person at my school who hadn't made an effort to distance himself from me. On the contrary, he seemed pretty adamant about making my acquaintance. I made up my mind then that since I didn't have the luxury of turning friends away when they presented themselves, I should at least try to be nice and get to know him. 

Pushing myself away from the window, I went back downstairs and flipped the TV on as I started making dinner for myself. For the first time in over three months, I felt a little less depressed as I spent the rest of my evening alone.