énouement [d.l + k.f]

prologue (part 1)

august 12th 2008

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11 year old diego looked out of the living room window as the new family that moved in across the street from him unloaded boxes from the moving truck and carried them into the house, carefully watching to see if the couple that he spotted at least had kids. he hoped they did, he's been bored all summer, having nobody to play or hang out with.

there were kids in his neighborhood, and from his school, but the problem is that none of them wanted to be caught dead with diego. he was often teased for being one of the shortest boys in his class (he was almost 12 and still mistaken for a 4th grader at times), his lisp, looking like a girl, and for being a little slow, which to be fair, he wasn't the brightest bulb in the bunch, but he wasn't a complete idiot. it wasn't his fault that he was a slow learner. 

he continued to watch intently as the couple continued to carry boxes into the house, until two small figures stepped out of the house and onto the porch.

there was a boy who looked about diego's age, who was extremely skinny, and had sandy brown curls tied up in a puff on top of his head, and there was a girl - who he assumed was his little sister, who looked about 4 or 5 holding a barbie doll.

diego sat down his nintendo ds on the windowsill and rushed into the kitchen to ask his mother who was preparing dinner if he could go outside to greet the new neighbors across the street.

"mom! mom! can i go out and say hi to the new neighbors? i really wanna meet them" he requested as his mother continued to cook.

"go right ahead, sugar pie, just be back before dinner," candy replied to her son.

diego rolled his eyes at the nickname and turned around and left the kitchen. "sugar pie" was actually a nickname from his grandmother, who used to call diego names of various sweets, because it matched with candy which was his mother's name. deep down he appreciated it, but not when his mother entered his class with his lunchbox and exclaimed "sugar pie, you forgot your lunch," in front of the entire class, which made him just about want to die with embarrassment at the whole ordeal.

he left the house and walked across the street, where the boy and his little sister were sitting on the porch together, the girl still playing with her doll, and the boy playing with her hair and looking bored.

"so um hi, i see that you're new here and whatever....and i just wanted to say hi," diego greeted the two of them.

the boy looked up at diego, silently happy that there seemed to be a good amount of kids in his neighborhood. if he had to live on a street full of a bunch of old people, he would have asked to be shipped back to pennsylvania asap.

"hi, i'm kimetrius, but you can just call me ki," the boy introduced myself. "and this is my sister keiya." 

what kind of name is kimetrius? is that a kind of sauce?  diego had to stop himself from laughing at his stupid name. he didn't want to make his first potential friend think he was rude.

"oh, hi kimetrius. i'm diego. where you from?" diego continued introducing himself.

"we from pennsylvania, my dad's power plant moved him down here to florida or whatever so we had to move....i lowkey miss all my friends from back home already, but it don't snow here, so i'm good," kimetrius shrugged.

diego nodded. he wasn't from here either. after his dad left his life when he was only 4 - he still didn't know what happened to him, but his mom always said she'd tell him when he got older, his mom packed up and moved them both to miami for a "fresh start", and they've lived down here ever since. he barely remembers what california was even like.