My Neighbor

I was 16 the first time I saw him watching me through the front window of his house next door. I was in a black tank top and a pair of blue jeans, mowing our front lawn. My mom would normally do it, but she was in bed, sick from her radiation treatments. I didn’t mind helping her around the house, doing chores and such. I’d been doing most of the chores since I was 9 years old. She was a single mom, working two jobs and trying to support her three psycho kids.

She married my stepdad when I was 12 and moved all of us from Arizona to California. We went from living on a huge plot of land, with horses and a bunch of dogs, room to run and ride. To living in the suburbs. My chore list had drastically decreased. My mom took over most of the chores since I went back to attending regular school instead of what my mom considered homeschool.

After my mom's cancer diagnosis and her no longer being able to do it all, I gladly stepped up and took over running the house for her. I had been kicked out of high school for fighting and had to do independent study anyway. I didn’t have anything better to do with my time at that point. I didn’t have friends or a job yet.

The second time I noticed him looking at me was the time I was sunbathing on our deck in our backyard. His bedroom window easily overlooked our yard. I was in a black bikini, laying on a lounge chair and listening to music. I had that weird feeling that someone was looking at me, I thought maybe my mom was looking down from her bedroom above me, so I glanced up to wave, but her window was empty. My eyes automatically scanned all the windows I could see, and I saw him there, peering down at me, hungrily, from his upstairs window.

It was a strange feeling, to see him standing there staring. At first, it didn’t seem to bother him, that I saw him there. After a minute, though, he disappeared into the shadow of the room, and I couldn’t see him anymore. I still felt like he was there, watching from the shadows. I stopped sunbathing after that and stopped spending a lot of time in my back yard. I just felt like at any time, he could be watching me.

A few months after my 17th birthday, I got a job at the Taco Bell down the street from my house. I started walking to work and walking home at night. One of my managers didn’t like me walking home in the dark, so he would give me rides and drop me off at my driveway. That started out innocently, but I have a whole other story about that one another time. During this time though, it was innocent.

My neighbor would watch from his living room window when he would hear the car pull up. A few times he would even open his front door and watch. It was as though he were trying to catch my manager doing something that he shouldn’t be doing with a teenage girl. I thought maybe he was just being a nice guy, being protective of his young neighbor?

One afternoon the week before my 18th birthday, I was out mowing the front lawn for my mom. I just had on a white tank top and tight black jeans, my hair was tied up in a high ponytail and my black and white Chucks were covered in green at this point. I had been out there for about an hour and the sweat was already dripping from my chin. I thought I looked like a mess, but from his reaction, I guess not.

My neighbor walked outside and smiled when he saw me stopping to take a drink of water. I had my water bottle on the little wooden 3-foot fence that divided our two yards. He sauntered over and rested his elbows on the fence, looking out over our yard admiring my work. “Looking good,” he said with a sly smile and glanced at me. I took a glance back at the yard with a huff and said, “thanks, it’s kind of kicking my ass today.” He chuckled and said, “Oh, yeah, the lawn looks good too.”

I stopped mid-drink and looked over at him in obvious shock. My head was screaming, ‘Did he just say what I think he did???’. He must have known because he answered my question, “Oh come on, you have to know you’re gorgeous by now.” I swallowed the drink of water I had been holding in my mouth and stared at him. I had known this man since I was 13, this man who worked for the Highway Patrol, whose wife had given me rides to school when I needed them. He was flirting with me. I knew that his wife had left him a year before, but I never thought for once that he would approach me like this.

He laughed again, “Hey! Your birthday is coming up right? in a few days?” I nodded slowly, “Yeah, on the 22nd.” He smiled wide, “Your 18th birthday?” Again, I nodded, staring at him, frozen, not sure where this line of questioning was leading. He clapped his hands once, as if an idea just struck him, “Would you want to go with me to the Police Officers Christmas Ball this year? Purely platonic, of course.” With that last part he smirked and eyed me up and down, “You’ll be 18 before then anyway, so…” his little finger made a small circle on my forearm as he smiled at me.

I cleared my throat and said, “Um, I’m pretty sure I have to work that night. I usually work weekends and it’s really hard to get someone to take those shifts.” He frowned, “Oh, well, I’m sure I could talk to your manager for you.” I began to shake a bit with fear, wondering how the hell I was going to get out of this. I blinked, my voice shaking, “Oh, uh, no… That’s ok, I really need the hours. But thank you for the offer, though...”

He sighed, and said, “I see, well, that sucks. How about dinner then? I’ll take you somewhere special for your birthday.” I blinked again, my head was pounding, how do I get out? Should I run inside? What is happening? At that moment I was saved by my stepdad pulling into the driveway, coming home from work. My neighbor saw him and stood up, waved at my stepdad, smiled quickly at me and then went back inside.

A few months later, he sold his house and moved away, I never saw him again.