The boy across the hall

Chapter 1

                I slowly climbed the stairs to my new apartment.  I had just moved here from the states and was in no mood to take the elevator. My job needed me to relocate and that was easy considering I only had my mom back home and I barely talked to her as it is. The stress is killing me. I don’t know how to get to work, I can’t walk home alone, I can’t go out for dinner to talk to the waiters I’d become friends with. Everything happened so fast, and now I’m walking up the stairs to an apartment where there are more things in boxes than out of. At least my neighbors seem nice.

                Last weekend, my first weekend here, my neighbor across the hall came over and introduced himself. I believe his name was Harry or Barry, something along those lines. He seemed nice but I hadn’t really payed much attention. He explained something about how he wouldn’t be home a lot because he was in a band or something. I guess he’ll be home for the next 6 months though.

                I finally made it up to my door and unlocked it. It didn’t surprise me when I saw a cat sitting my windowsill. She’d shown up when I got here so I just assumed she’s a stray.

                “hey little lady how was your day??” I walked over and scratched the cat behind her ears and she leaned her head into my hand and purred. I set my bag down and walked over to the fridge to see what I had for dinner. All this past week my fridge had been so close to empty and I hadn’t been grocery shopping so I don’t know why I even bothered to look in there. Nothing had changed. There was still a carton of milk, some greek yogurt, and strawberries.

                I’d only unpacked five bowls and five spoons, enough to get me through the week, and now I was on my last one. This meant I had to do dishes tomorrow, if I wanted to have my usual yogurt and berries for breakfast.  I was used to doing dishes and what not by myself at my old apartment, but this place was just so foreign to me. The worst part was I still didn’t have any friends. I didn’t have many back home but I still had people to talk to, to complain to. I also had to do laundry because the cat slept in my box of clean clothes. There was cat hair on everything I hadn’t hung up.  I didn’t even have a washing machine or dryer.

                I picked up my box of clothes and headed for the door, I decided that “dinner” could wait. I walked out the door and let it close behind me. I still wasn’t in the mood to take the elevator even though I could barely see over the box. I made it to the stairwell and was cautiously walking down when I lost my footing. And of course I let go of my box of clothes and grabbed the railing so I wouldn’t fall. The box went tumbling down spilling clothes everywhere.

                “Shit…” I mumbled to myself. hopefully no one takes the stairs right about now… i thought to myself. Last thing I wanted was a random stranger seeing me crawling on the ground picking up my underwear.

                I had about half of the things back in the box when I heard footsteps. Shit shit shit shit. I grabbed an armful and was stuffing it into the box when a man walked around the corner. I felt my face heat up when I turned around to face him.

                “Uh sorry I just uh dropped my stuff going to the uh washing room.” I scrambled for my words trying not to make a fool out of myself and obviously failing. I could feel the heat creeping down my neck and to my chest.

                The man looked slightly familiar but i didn’t know where from. His face lit up in recognition.

                “Oh! Isabelle! It’s no big deal! Do you want some help?” He smiled so wide. He had dimples so deep I’m pretty sure you could eat cereal out of them. I was confused because I couldn’t place where he was from, but I recognized the him..