Now that we’re out of the city, I’ll only be able to see Chen once a month, unless I take the train into Chicago on my own. My dad expects me to step up my independent playing. He even went as far as to make sure my extra periods at school were all time in the music room.
I think of everything I miss because of this move, my afternoon jazz with Chen is what I lament the most. It’s been replaced by a gilded light fixture and a soaring ceiling that will make my playing echo out into the streets. It will be impossible to run away from the sounds my fingers will be forced to make. But I will practice, and I’ll play the Bachs and the Mozarts and the Beethovens—those seemingly impossible songs that have become habits for my hands. I’ll practice because that’s what my father expects, and if I meet his expectations, he’ll support my decision to study in New York or…or Paris or London or Rome. Anywhere…but here.
And then, I’ll be free.
Unable to avoid reality any longer, I finally give in and venture to the driveway and the open hatch in the back of the Honda where most of my belongings still rest in taped-up cardboard boxes. My clothes are all stuffed into pillowcases; the wrinkles will have to be dealt with later.
With the last box wedged between my hip and the bumper, I reach up to slam the hatch closed again. The dark pair of eyes staring at me from the other side of the car make me jump—effectively dropping my boxes to the ground, spilling clothes and books and random trinkets from my girlfriends.
On instinct, I bend down to gather everything back into my arms, expecting help with my now disorganized load. Instead, I hear the steady drumming of a basketball along the pavement, and when I bend down just a little lower, I see his gray Converse slide slowly away from me, up our driveway toward the garage.
“Unbelievable,” I whisper to myself as I stand with only half of my things, relenting the fact that I’m now going to have to make two trips. My red sweater is barely clinging to my grip, one sleeve dragging along the ground as I cross the driveway to my backdoor. My new neighbor keeps his back to me the entire time, his focus on the slow dribble of his ball. I give him a good long stare as I push my ass into the door a few times, my free fingers fumbling for the handle, desperate to get it open.
“Thanks for helping,” I whisper again, following it up with the word asshole in my head.
Suddenly, his dark eyes are on mine, and I would swear he heard me with the smug smirk that creeps into one cheek. The ball never stops moving. His hand never stops moving. He’s operating completely independent of the hypnosis he’s attempting to put me under—the soft squint to his eyes somehow making them more ominous. I’m not quite sure he isn’t evil. And I’m also not quite sure that this hypnosis isn’t working.
A gift, the door behind me unhinges and I stumble backward inside, somehow catching my balance so I don’t make a complete ass out of myself in front of mister darkness.
I race upstairs quickly, tossing my pile of things on my bed without care, hurrying to the window to orient myself with exactly what my view is in relationship to the driveway. With one push of the curtain, I know.
His eyes are right back to me, almost as if he were expecting me to look—expecting me to find him. The damned smirk on his face is still there, and my heart is thumping away at my stomach, not so much from flutters…as panic. The ball is still in motion, and I can’t help but beg myself to remember the sight of him, so I can think about it later and decide if he’s really as scary as my instincts tell me he is.
His white T-shirt V-necks, and the sleeves hug his biceps. He’s wearing long black basketball shorts, and his hair is short, but long enough on top for the strands to twist in various directions. From a distance, he’s a really good-looking guy. But I have a feeling—and a fear—that it’s his eyes that hold the power. From fifteen feet up and fifty feet away, they literally smolder. If I weren’t such a social pariah, I would march back down the stairs and introduce myself. I’d ask him why he’s dribbling a ball in my driveway, using the hoop bolted to the eave of our garage. But my feet are stuck to the carpet of my new bedroom, and my hands are burning from the roughness of the curtains my hand is now squeezing.
When I think I can’t handle much more, his lip twitches, and then he blows me a kiss and turns around to shoot the ball into the hoop.
What. The. Hell. Was. That?
I let go of my grip on the curtain and fall to my knees, wishing there was some way I could erase the last five minutes of my life. Instead, I slide so my back is against the window’s wall, so I can’t see him, only hear the rhythmic thump of the basketball for the next twenty minutes.