I crinkled my nose. Hopefully I didn't just jinx myself. With my luck, I probably did. Seeing my face fall, the boy was taken aback. "Hey, are you okay? I swear, whatever I said I didn't mean anything by it." I stared at him in shock. What had he just said? How could I ignore him when he was so very… hmph. I didn't know how that thought was supposed to end. "N-no, sorry it wasn't you." Lie. "I'm just shocked to see someone here. Not that often that you find someone wandering this far off. By the way, I haven't seen you around here before. Are you new?" Now that I thought about it, I knew everyone around here. I didn't recognize this boy at all. Had someone escaped my notice? No, not likely. He had to be new. "Yeah," he said, grinning again. My heart did a little flip. He had a dimple on his right cheek. I was almost disappointed when it disappeared so he could speak again. I went back to wanting to smack myself. "I moved in yesterday. Still settling in. We don't even have furniture yet." He laughed, like the absence of furniture was funny. I was left out on the joke. I had to remind myself to ignore him once again. I wasn't sure what he was up to but it didn't matter. So long as he left me alone. With that thought, I brushed past him, bumping his shoulder rudely as I retrieved the small wooden bench I made from under the tarp. He froze. I didn't ponder too much on it until a few minutes passed and he was still in the same spot I'd last seen him in. He wasn't breathing. I tried to ignore it, but after a minute his silence had me wary. He was so very still. The hairs on the back of my arms stood on end. Something was fundamentally wrong with this guy. He snapped out of it in the same amount of time it took him to zone out, or whatever it was that he'd done. "Sorry," he muttered sheepishly. "I guess I got lost in thought."
