I was not surprised to meet the new neighbors. I'd spent months preparing myself, researching conversation topics, practicing different methods of introduction, reading and annotating self-help books written for people like me who require extra assistance when interacting with others. In fact, a copy of How to Make Friends and Influence People was tucked safely in my satchel, the pages worn and well loved. My mother told me to treat meeting the neighbors like a job application, and that first impressions are everything.
To be fair, she tells me to treat everything like a job application, but I digress.
So no, I was not surprised when I met who would soon become my next door neighbor. But I was surprised when I looked straight up into a pair of bright yellow eyes, staring unblinkingly down at me.
It took me a second to process this person who had materialized before me. They were tall easily over six feet, which was startling enough, but there was something else about them that I couldn't place. Something about them that seemed so distinctly other. Something that had nothing to do with their high cheekbones and regal posture, though that certainly added to it. The best way I could describe it would be that they had this ethereal presence to them, an unreal quality that made my head spin.
In that moment I wouldn't have been surprised to see them levitating a few feet off the ground.
They coughed, a dainty and yet commanding gesture.
I blinked and adjusted my glasses. Suddenly all the wisdom I had gathered from my mother and from my books had dissipated as if a stiff gust of wind had wormed its way into my ear canal and knocked over the shelves and files in my brain.
"Ben," I said, and nothing more. So much for a good first impression.
A corner of their mouth turns up. "Arthur."
It was as if we were on similar wavelengths. Not the same one, but perhaps ones parallel to each other, perpetually riding the tides of sound and light, on and on and on.
My mother also says I think too much. That I try to read people as if they were books.
"I'm sorry," I say, holding my box tighter to my chest. It was heavy and slipping through my arms. "I didn't mean to stare. I just wasn't expecting-"
It is then that I remember why I had met this stranger in the first place.
They had been on my front porch, blocking the way to the door, and I hadn't noticed until I had run into their unmoving chest because I had been looking down at the box, the first box, deep in thought.
"Why are you on my porch?" It may have been too blunt, but I wasn't the one trespassing on someone else's property.
The stranger, strange indeed, raised their eyebrows (genuine surprise?) and gave me another once over with those yellow eyes.
"I didn't realize," they said. "Is this your house?"
I squinted at them, wondering how someone could be worse at reading social situations than me.
"It is now. I'm moving in."
Their face lit up with an odd expression, equal parts curiosity and, was that joy? "Can I help you?"
I blinked. Good first impressions or no, this person wanted to help me, and I needed all the help I could get.
"Sure," I said, and before I could suppress it a grateful smile bloomed across my face.
They immediately bounded over to my car, a pastel blue hybrid, and picked up one of the larger boxes with ease. Another strange thing about them, their limbs were willowy and didn't appear strong at all, but they were still able to gracefully lift two boxes at once and not break a sweat. They grinned, and I resisted the urge to glower. They looked much better than I probably did, with my flushed face and rivers of sweat.
