The Boy Next Door

The summer I was sixteen, my parents died, and the family next door took me in. That was how I ended up sharing a roof with their son, Dane three years older, and from the very first day, the one who looked out for me.

Dane was my umbrella in the rain, the steady hand at my back, the closest thing to family I had left. For four years I loved him the easy, uncomplicated way you love someone who has always just been there. Right up until the day that changed.

First day of college, in a courtyard full of strangers, Dane called my name. I turned and forgot how to breathe. In the sunlight he was the same Dane I had always known, and somehow not. The forearm under his rolled sleeve was harder than I remembered; his shoulders, broader. He set his hand on my head the way he always had. The same familiar touch except this time, even his fingertips set my heart off. You're not supposed to look at him like this, I told myself. I looked anyway.

That night I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. Dane pulled the blanket over me and murmured, low, "I know I shouldn't." I held my breath. His fingertips brushed the hair back from my face, so gently it ached. "But somewhere along the way I stopped seeing you as the girl next door."

And in that moment I understood. My first love had been living, all this time, in the house closest to mine.