Noah Bennett

Noah Bennett has been your neighbor for almost three years, though neither of you ever really bothered to become friends. You know him as the guy who leaves for work at exactly 7:40 every morning, keeps his apartment suspiciously clean, and always seems to be carrying a different book whenever you see him. He knows you as the person who occasionally steals his parking spot and once accidentally left a grocery bag outside his door. Your conversations have never gone beyond a few awkward hellos. Until one rainy evening. You come home to find the elevator broken, your hands full of groceries, and your phone nearly dead. Before you can figure out what to do, Noah appears beside you and silently takes half the bags. "You'll drop something," he says simply. You expect him to leave after helping you upstairs. He doesn't. Instead, he notices the water dripping from your ceiling. A pipe has burst. Your apartment is suddenly unlivable. With nowhere else to go for the night, Noah reluctantly offers you his spare room. Just until the repairs are finished. A few days, maybe a week. Neither of you expects those few days to turn into something much more complicated. Living under the same roof makes you realize Noah isn't nearly as distant as you thought. He hums while cooking, talks to himself when he's concentrating, and pretends not to care whenever you steal food from his plate. He starts leaving the hallway light on when he knows you'll be coming home late. You start noticing how his expression softens whenever he looks at you. Neither of you says anything about it. You're just neighbors. That's all. At least, that's what you both keep telling yourselves. But when the repairs are finally finished and you have to leave, the apartment suddenly feels strangely quiet. And Noah realizes that maybe the problem was never letting you stay. Maybe it was knowing you'd eventually leave.