The Boy Next Door

ｏｎｅ

Rachel

Cheer practice. A long, tiring time with disrespectful girls. The new incoming freshman is the most exhausting part of it all. The freshman come in acting like they need to fill the role of a stereotypical cheerleader. Within a few weeks they figure out that no one on the team is like that and they settle down, but for the first few weeks of practice, I always dread putting up with them. As a captain of the team, that is no mindset to be in, but the first few weeks can be infuriating. Until they come to their sense, if they ever do, I am stuck powering through the joyous beginning of the season. Luckily, today's practice was cut fifteen minutes short. Had it gone any longer today, I think I would have lost my mind.

As soon as I got home from cheer practice, I threw my gym bag on my bedroom floor with force. I looked out my bedroom window and up at the sky. Gray clouds blanketed the sky. Suddenly they released their contents to the ground in anger, similar to how I had treated my gym bag. I let out a long, heavy sigh. It had already been an exhausting day. The heavy rain would only put me into a dull and grumpier mood that no one would appreciate.

Between the exercising that I had just done and stress that was taking over my body, a snack was calling my name. Down in the kitchen I grabbed a fresh apple out of the bowl, cut it into eight slices, made some hot tea and went back upstairs to rest. I had no other obligations besides cheer practice at this point in my life because school wasn't to start back for another few days. This time was time I could use to just lay on my phone and waste the rest of the day. I was feeling like I was getting sick too, which was probably just a side effect of the stress that I was under, so resting wasn't such a bad thing.

What a boring, uneventful day one might say, but my day was only getting started. When I picked my phone up off of the bed, I noticed that my best friend was calling me. We hadn't even been apart for thirty minutes and she already had something to talk to me about.

"Good lord. Are you sore from that practice already? I sure am. I feel like I'm dying!" She spat out. I couldn't even squeeze in a hello.

"Maybe you're just out of shape... but yes, I feel like my legs are going to fall off too. So, maybe we are both out of shape."

"Do you see that moving truck in the house next to yours? I think someone is moving in right now."

Katie had lived in the large house across the street from me since I was in seventh grade and she was in sixth grade. I noticed the large, yellow moving truck she was talking about in the long driveway of the house next door. No one had lived in that house for a few months or maybe even years. I couldn't remember. The last time someone lived there was just a blur in my memory. The last people I remember living in that house was an older couple. I spotted a boy who looked to be about my age, or maybe older, walking down the driveway to the moving truck. He was unloading boxes and furniture into the garage.

"Obviously, how can you miss it? It's a highlighter yellow truck and taking up a lot of space." I pointed out.

"I see this guy going up and down the driveway, but I can't really see what he looks like. Mind describing him for me? Maybe it is just one of the moving company guys, but I want to know."

I rolled my eyes. Since the day I met Katie, the only thing on her mind has been boys. I like to call it boy crazy. She always has her focus on the guys, what they look like, what they are doing, who they are, if they are cute, and whatever else might come to the imagination. Her only thoughts have always revolved around them as long as I have known her. I studied this guy next door closely as he walked in and out of the garage with fresh boxes so I could describe him to her. His shirt was wet, but not drenched from the rain. He grabbed another box from the back and brought it to the garage.