Always and Everything

2

7 Years Earlier, The Davies Residence

"Hey, Jules, look!" Alex yells as he pulls the blinds apart to stare outside. He looks funny as he faces backwards on the couch, sitting on his knees, his face smashed up against the blinds.

"What is it?" I get up from my chair and join him, shoving my face right up next to his to see out of his make-shift peep hole.

Across the street is a moving truck and two unfamiliar vehicles. Struggling to carry a large sofa through the doorway is a large heavy set man with dark brown hair and a large beard and a tall, fit woman with sandy blonde hair pulled back into a pony tail. Out of the back of the moving truck, a younger replica of the woman emerges holding a large box. Her hair hangs in waves around her head and she seems to be impatiently yelling at someone inside the truck. A moment later, a boy, around my brother's age, steps out of the truck holding another box. The boy has dark curly hair hanging to his chin.

When the boy appears, Alex and I give each other a look and then a smile grows widely on both of our faces. The only other person in our neighborhood our age is a boy down the street, but he never leaves his house. We tried to go over and hang out with him once, but he didn't talk the entire time. Ever since then, Alex and I have been stuck playing with each other.

We both hop off the couch simultaneously and run over to our mother, who is sitting in a recliner reading a book. We stand in front of her chair, wiggling impatiently, until she looks up from her book.

"Can we go outside?" Alex asks quickly and I nod in agreement.

She looks at us quizzically, "sure..."

We quickly take off towards the door.

"Wait!" she says loudly and we both stop in our tracks and slouch in disappointment. We turn to face her.

"What?" I ask.

"Why are you so excited about going outside? Is the ice cream truck here?" she pauses and tilts her head slightly to listen for the sound of an ice cream truck.

"No, no, there's no ice cream truck," Alex is getting antsy now. As he says this, he is bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet and he keeps glancing towards the door.

"Then what is so important outside that you can't sit still?" she asks, putting the book down in her lap.

"The new neighbors. Come on, mom. Can we go meet them?" I say quickly.

"New neighbors?" she stands up and walks over to the blinds, "I didn't know anyone was moving in."

She glances through the blinds and then yells up at our father, "Mike! Come down here."

"What?" comes a mumbled response from upstairs.

"Come down here!"

"Fine, fine, I'm coming."

Alex and I keep looking from our mom to the door to each other impatiently. Our father finally appears at the bottom of the stairs and sees us bouncing around.

"What's wrong with them?" he asks, gesturing an arm in our direction.

"They want to meet the new neighbors."

"New neighbors?" he asks and joins my mom at the window.

"Can we go meet them or not?" Alex asks impatiently.

"Calm down, Alex," my mother says, "sit down. You're stressing me out."

Alex groans in frustration and then takes a seat on the couch, crossing his arms grouchily. I join him and copy his pose.

"Hm, it seems we do have new neighbors," my father says.

"Should we go help them move in?" my mother asks, looking at my father, "It looks like they are moving all the furniture alone."

"Yeah, let's go over there," he responds.

Alex jumps up from the couch.

"Can we go now?" he asks excitedly.

"One second, I need to put my shoes on," my father says.

Alex groans again dramatically as he falls backwards onto the couch, throwing his arm over is head. I crawl over to the window and peep out through the blinds again. I see the boy sitting on the curb in front of the house, a Gameboy in his hands. He looks up for only a moment and it feels as those he is looking right at me. Before I can tell if we've made eye contact, he turns his head quickly. He scrambles to his feet as the woman walks towards him waving her arms, gesturing to the moving van. Before he walks away completely, he glances back at the window and I shut the blinds quickly, scared he really did see me watching him.

"Ready?" mom asks.

"Yes!" Alex says dramatically and stands up.

"Well, time to go meet the neighbors," dad says as he opens the door.