Chapter 1 | The Neighbor Who Knocks
916 Words
Dante's POV
I don’t open my door before 8AM.
Rule number one of surviving: don’t let the world in before coffee. Don’t let the noise in. Don’t let people in.
But at 7:03 AM, someone was knocking like she paid the rent for my hallway.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Not polite. Not patient. Urgent.
I checked the peephole because if it was the landlord again, I was pretending I was dead.
Unit 4A.
The new neighbor.
Cassie.
She was holding Mimi.
My blood went cold.
I yanked the door open before my brain could catch up.
“Daddy!” Mimi’s face lit up like I was the sun. She had pandesal crumbs on her mouth and her two pigtails were half-undone. “Ate Cass fed me! She’s nice!”
Cassie didn’t look scared. She should’ve been.
I was in a gray hoodie that hadn’t seen a wash in three days, no shave, hair a mess, and three hours of sleep on my face. I looked like every warning label her mother probably told her about. Like grief in human form.
“Put her down,” I said.
My voice was rough from sleep. From three years of not using it unless I had to.
Cassie crouched and set Mimi on her feet, but she didn’t let go right away. Her hands went to Mimi’s first. She checked her fingers. Brushed crumbs off her cheek. Tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
Like a mom.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and finally her eyes lifted to mine. Brown. Wide. Not afraid. Just… assessing. “She knocked on my door. Said you weren’t moving and she was hungry. I didn’t know you had a kid.”
I didn’t answer.
I never answered questions I didn’t ask.
She held up a brown paper bag. Steam was fogging the bottom of it. “I made extra. Sinigang and pandesal. And coffee. Black. No sugar. I guessed.”
I stared at the bag like it was a trap.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“I know,” she said, and her smile didn’t break. If anything, it got steadier. It was infuriating. “You look like you’d rather starve than ask. So I didn’t wait for you to.”
Her hair was in a messy bun that was losing the fight. Blue paint on her sleeve. And tucked under the string of the bag, like an afterthought, was a sunflower.
Loud. Yellow. Alive.
Everything my hallway wasn’t. Everything I wasn’t anymore.
“I’m Cassie. 4A.” She jerked her thumb toward her door. “You can yell at me later. Just feed your kid first.”
Mimi tugged my hoodie. “Daddy, can Ate Cass come in? She has a cat sticker.”
“No.”
The word came out fast. Too fast. Too loud. The old Dante. The one who shuts doors before anyone can hurt him.
Mimi flinched.
Cassie saw it. Her smile faded a little. Not much. Just enough to show me she noticed. That she cared.
“Okay.” She set the bag down by my feet. Carefully. No closer. Giving me space. “I’m next door if you need anything. Wrench. Band-aid. Silence. I’m good at all three.”
She started to leave, then paused. Her eyes dropped to the sunflower still dangling from the bag in my hand.
She pointed at it. “Don’t throw it out. It dies faster if you’re mad at it.” A beat. “And you look mad a lot.”
Then she was gone.
Back to 4A.
Music started ten seconds later. Pop. Bright. Too cheerful for 7AM. Too alive.
I stood in my doorway like an i***t. Holding a bag of food I didn’t earn. Staring at a flower I didn’t ask for.
“Mimi, inside. Now.”
She ran in. Small feet. No hesitation.
I closed the door. Hard.
The sunflower was still in my hand.
I walked to the kitchen. Trash can open. Lid up. Waiting.
I should’ve dropped it.
I didn’t.
I put it in Mimi’s empty mug instead. No water. It would wilt by tonight. Good. Let it. Things that bright didn’t last in a place like this anyway.
Mimi ate everything. In silence. The kind of silence I taught her because talking back to a grumpy dad gets you ignored.
Then she grabbed a crayon.
I watched her from the counter. Three stick figures. Tall one with a hat that looked like my chef’s hat. Small one with two pigtails. One with long hair and a giant yellow flower for a head.
“Daddy. Me. Ate Cass,” she announced, proud, pointing at each one. “Family.”
I opened my mouth to say that’s not us. That’s not how this works. We’re two. Not three.
Nothing came out.
Because the last time someone drew us, my wife was still alive. And the fridge was full of her magnets.
I took the tape from the drawer. My hands were steady. They always were in the kitchen.
I put the drawing on the fridge. Crooked. Off-center. Like me.
Outside, Cassie was still humming. Off-key.
My apartment was noisy.
And for the first time since the funeral three years ago, the noise didn’t make me want to leave the room.
It made me want to stay. And listen.
Which was the most dangerous thing I could do.
Because neighbors leave.
Sunflowers wilt.
And I don’t survive goodbyes anymore.
End of Chapter 1
- Writer
