I sit on the couch, parallel to my foster mom, Sandra, silently watching the news like we do every night after dinner at 7:00.  I'm bored out of my mind, but she insists I spend at least some time with her. 

Halfway through an enchanting report about a man who murdered his girlfriend with a nail gun, there are three pounding knocks on the front door. Annoyed,Sandra takes her time getting up and making her way towards the door. She's such a drama queen.

As soon as the door opens the slightest, she is greeted with a speedy, fresh out of puberty guy's voice. "Hello, my name is James, my family just moved in next door. My mom told me to bring over this pie, it's peach!" he shoves it into her arms. She winces, it must be hot. Actually, it is hot, I can see the steam rolling off the top. While bouncing from the burning, she unknowingly made way for a direct line a vision from the boy to me.

Shes tries to shut the door, muttering a thank you, but he stops it and loudly says, "Wait! Who is that?"

 With the door once again open, he waves at me. Without even realizing, my hand also starts to move upward. He just barely gets out a, "Hello, my name is-" before the door is shut in his face.

Groaning, Sandra brings the pie into the kitchen. I see this as my opportunity and bolt up the stairs, only to see the top blocked my my foster brother playing with his figurines. "Hey, Freak," he taunts, "Where are you going? Isn't it your time with mom right now?"

"He's right," Sandra says from the bottom of the stairs, "You're supposed to be watching the news with me."

I roll my eyes, but walk down the stairs and back over to the sofa, and stay there tracing shapes onto my thigh until, 30 minutes later, I am finally free.

It's eight o' clock by now, usually about the time I give up on my foster family and head to my room. Doing exactly that, I grab a slice of the mysterious peach pie that was brought to us and head up to my room.  

I'm sitting on my bed, watching Netflix and eating pie, when I look over to my window to make sure my blinds are closed. What I find, other than the fact that my window is open, is that it also sees right into a bedroom in the house next to mine. How I haven't noticed this, I have no idea.

Intrigued, I make my way over to learn more. 

At the same moment, the occupant of the room walks in through a side door, thankfully not yet noticing me. It's the same guy from earlier, the one that brought my foster family peach pie. 

I didn't get a good look at him before, but now I have a perfect view.  I can't see his face, but I can make out the fact that his hair is a dark shade of brown, kind of curly, and he is lean, muscular. Not the gross, body builder type of muscular, he actually looks pretty skinny. But he has that type of form that you can just tell makes him strong.

I must have been watching for a while, because when I finally focus my eyes back in I see he is staring at me. My face flushes red, as anyone's would if they had just been caught virtually stalking. He waves, and this time I get the chance to wave back.  He turns away for a moment, grabbing a marker and a piece of paper. I can't tell what he writing at first, but it becomes clear once he holds the sheet up that lists 10 numbers, a phone number. I have a phone, but my foster mom only got it for me because I go to public school, and walk there alone every day. Nevertheless, I enter the digits and start typing.

"Hey"

I'm not really one for starting conversations, I haven't even communicated to a human being in 6 years except my foster parents, and even that was just through text, and only for important things.

He replies almost immediately, though, with a simple, "I'm James. What's your name?"

"Josie," I reply.

"Do you go to Madison High? I'm starting there on Monday"

Instead of texting back, I just look over to him through the window and nod

"Awesome, want to walk together? I don't know anyone"

I'm a little reluctant, but I realize I have nothing to lose, he will just ditch me and call me a freak like everyone else once he knows the truth, so once I meet his eyes from across the way, I once again nod. 

"Awesome." Gosh he says that a lot. "I have to go, see you Monday."

I put my phone down and go back to watching FRIENDS, daydreaming about how another classmate will crush my dreams of having a social interaction without being rejected.