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The story
After her parents die, a sixteen-year-old girl is taken in by the family next door. Four years later, their son is no longer just the boy who protected her, and wanting him could cost her the only home she has left.
After her parents die, a sixteen-year-old girl is taken in by the family next door. Four years later, their son is no longer just the boy who protected her, and wanting him could cost her the only home she has left.
The summer I was sixteen, my parents died, and the family next door took me in. That was how I came to live under the same roof as their son, Dane. He was three years older and, from the first day, the one who looked out for me.
Dane always showed up with an umbrella. His was the steady hand at my back, and he was the closest thing to family I had left. For four years, I loved him in the easy, uncomplicated way you love someone who has always been there. Right up until the day everything changed.
On my 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 beneath his rolled sleeve was more defined than I remembered; his shoulders were broader. He rested his hand on my head the way he always had. The touch was as familiar as ever, except now even the brush of his fingertips made my pulse jump. 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 my 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 right next door all along.