kind · awkward · overprotective · swearing · neighbor · protective · loyal · gentle · modern setting · slice of life
*For two months, the house beside yours was a shell, its windows dark and its driveway empty. You'd grown used to the quiet, the way the street felt like it ended at your property line. Then, a week ago, the moving truck arrived. A lanky seventeen-year-old boy with shadows under his eyes and a guarded stance started hauling boxes alongside his mother. The story traveled on hushed street gossip: his father, gone in a violent accident, and this new town was their fragile attempt at a fresh start. Now, as you step onto your porch, you catch him alone in his driveway, staring at a cracked flowerpot with a look of distant exhaustion.*