Chapter 1

1: The Neighbour

Thom Baron, a grown man of thirty-one years, a home owner with a perfect credit score, who’d graduated in the top one percentile of his year and followed it with a grade of ninety-two on his CFE, slammed himself against the siding of his own house and held his breath as if he were a cowering school child all over again. From somewhere amongst the leafy oaks that ran behind the suburban sprawl of his neighbourhood, a cicada shrieked, and as if the sound had coaxed it out, a drop of perspiration slipped down Thom’s spine. Mid-afternoon sun beat down, not only on his head, but being deflected off the pavement below and the siding behind. He was stuck. If he moved ten centimetres to the left, he’d be seen. If he moved twenty to his right, he’d be seen. There wasn’t even a fence at the side of the house that he could crouch behind. He closed his eyes and breathed. Damn it.

“Thom?”

His stomach sank into his bowels. His heart did a flutter-roll, paused, then began to beat furiously to make up time. The sounds of the yard were drowned out by his blood surging through his veins.

The question came again, but this time it seemed to come from a million miles away. “Thom?”

He forced himself to open his eyes and used every bit of strength he could muster in order to crack a smile. “Oh, hey. Uh, Justin. Nice…nice day, hmm?”

The smile his new neighbour gave him was one of the nicest things Thom had ever seen. And that just made every reaction he was already feeling twice as bad. If his heart didn’t give out altogether, he was going to throw up. As much as he should have been used to it, as much as these moments had yet to kill him, he knew, without a doubt, that this time was thetime and his heart had just thumped its last beat.

Thom Baron had been one of those children referred to as “painfully shy” by his teachers and counsellors, and that was one of the nicest terms they’d used. “Poorly developed social skills” was common. “An inability to interact” and “anxious” were high on the list. “Arrogant” had been the one that bothered him the most, and “socially disturbed” he considered one of the cleverest.

Some parents might have intervened when they started getting those reports, but Thom’s hadn’t been too bothered by any of it. They’d been no better themselves. There were no parties held at the Baron residence, including birthday parties, and none of them ever wandered outside to engage in the various block parties that inevitably spilled out to the streets around them.

This had worked out fairly well for his parents throughout their lives as his mother had been, and still was, a housewife. His father, up until two years prior, had owned a car dealership handed down from his father, and not once in the entire time that he’d been in proprietorship of that business had Mr. Thom Baron, Senior, ever sold a car himself or held a conversation with a customer. That’s what he had salesmen for and that was just the way things were.

Thom, however, in the age of advancing electronic development where every year more and more people expected to see faces and hear voices on social media, where group projects and community service and dating apps had become the norm, didn’t fare nearly as well.

“Thom?” Justin asked, stepping closer. “Are you okay? You’re sweaty. A little pale, even.”

For a second, it looked as if Justin was going to reach for him, and while Thom’s heart once again played swoop, crash, and restart, Thom’s mind began to race with possible scenarios: push him and run, shriek like a wounded cat in an attempt to scare him away. Just drop dead at Justin’s feet.

Once again it took every bit of power Thom could gather to tap his stomach. “Left work early. Maybe a touch of the flu.”

Two comments in and Thom was exhausted. He’d used up everything he had and more. He was in a deficit when it came to energy and his knees, lungs, and tongue knew it.

“Ah, I’m sorry.” Justin shook his head, frowning sympathetically. “Well, I won’t keep you. But I was hoping I could ask you for some help. Maybe if you’re feeling better later? Or tomorrow, or whenever.” Justin bit his lip and tilted his head, seeming to consider. “It’s just, you’ve got those hostas in the front yard, right? And they’re doing so well. But the ones that I have back here in my yard are just…well…” He pointed. “You can see for yourself.”

It took several seconds for Thom to realise Justin wanted him to look, and when that realisation clicked in, Thom snapped his head to the left and stared into Justin’s yard. He had no doubt that he’d looked ridiculous doing it but breaking the eye contact was such a relief that Thom began to tremble. He hated himself for it, but he couldn’t stop it if he tried; and he knew that without question because he’d spent the last three decades desperately trying, and failing, to not become a shaking, gasping, and occasionally blubbering mess when trying to deal with other humans.