Chapter 2
The days flew by in a frenzy of cleaning, waiting for the moving truck, and unpacking. Mango and his mother worked hard together to make their house feel a little bit more like a home. As much as it could feel like a home, Mango would mutter to himself. He couldn't feel at home in a foreign place like that.
After the moving truck had arrived, the scrambling around and emptying of boxes kept his mind off of the negative feelings. The room he had claimed had trinkets and boxes scattered all over. He wasn't a tidy person by any means. Mango dug through his boxes to find his gardening tools, his mind set on properly fixing the backyard, and preparing it for next year's season. He’d spent some time outside the days before to note down what tools he'd need. It hadn't been an easy feat. Mango smiled when he realized how much work he had laid out in front of him. He felt his passion swelling inside of him again, a light shining from within.
After he made a mess of his floors, the tools finally revealed themselves at the bottom of one of the boxes. Mango grumbled as he picked the plastic bag up, stepping around his scattered belongings as he made his way straight out of his room.
He hurried downstairs and out of the sliding glass doors into the garden. The bright summer sun shone down on him. The breeze felt comforting on his skin. Mango took a deep breath, the scent of nature calmed his mind. This would be his new safe space.
The bag was set down and Mango directly got to work on pulling roots out of the ground. He kept a small notebook with him, just to make little comments about how much soil he would need to buy, what plants would thrive best, and calculating the space. He’d lose himself in his work, making a big pile of whatever he was gonna discard at the side of the white, pointed fence.
“I could grow rose bushes here, and maybe a couple of apple trees,” Mango mumbled to himself, walking around the newly dug-up ground. He could see the result in front of him. With a proud nod, he looks around the garden once again.
There it was again.
Mango’s attention is immediately stolen by that flick of silver, hiding just out of his clean sight. He turned towards it swiftly, though it vanished from his vision just like it had the day he moved in. It was starting to get on Mango’s nerves. The sudden feeling of being watched overcame him once again. He wanted to yell at whatever the creature was to leave him alone and to stop sneaking around. Although, if it turned out to just be a strange hallucination, he’d feel embarrassed for screaming at nothing. He felt a little ashamed of himself. Hallucinating would just be another thing to add to the list of things that make him an outcast, something less worthy of respect.
No matter, there wasn't anyone to disrespect him here anyway. After his mom pulled him out of school, Mango didn't talk to anyone except her. Sure, it might’ve stunted his development a tad, but who's to say? He had developed just fine in his own opinion. Being lonely was just a more-than-sad perk of being, well, him. He had learned to welcome the lonely feelings instead of pushing them away. After all, longing for a casual person-to-person connection would just be distracting. Mango didn't need anything other than his mother and his hobbies. He didn't need friends if he was already happy with what he had.
Happy. He could never admit to anyone, not even himself, that he was not, in fact, happy.
A movement that caught his eye broke him from his spiraling thoughts, the silver color having disappeared fully from sight again. Mango grunted in disapproval. It was strange, extremely strange. He had thought that gardening would cleanse his mind, but it was only serving to fill him with even more uncertainty. He didn't want to conclude that he had been going crazy.
With his focus soon back on the yard, he sat down on the bench that leaned against the house wall, drawing out his plan. The soothing sounds of birds chirping and leaves rustling above ground relaxed him. The sight he would see if he looked up was tall trees and the bright blue sky, things he felt like he knew almost intimately. He'd spent so many hours looking up at that same sky, just during a different time, in a different place.
He missed it, his old town. It had been hell during the months before he moved, both at school and at home. Even though he'd spend every night crying himself to sleep because his mutant status had been starting to affect his mother, he missed the familiarity of it all. He missed the big window in the attic. He missed walking down to the pond in the forest behind the house. He missed his old room, with the ugly yellow wallpaper his mother had begged to replace, but he had refused every time.
Mango stood up with a grunt, leaving his gardening tools in the dirt as he stepped back inside the house to look for his mother.
“Mom?” He yelled out, searching the kitchen and living room. The rooms were more furnished than they had been in the morning, with the same furniture from their old house. It didn't feel right to Mango. Seeing all their old stuff in a new place almost seemed to disturb him in a way. He knew he would get used to it as the weeks passed. That didn't help with the present, though.
His mother's voice cut through his thoughts, making Mango turn around. It came from the front of the house. He noticed the open window in the hall and smiled as his mother was trying to set up their bench set. “I'm out here, Mango!” She beamed, waving at him to come outside. Mango chuckled to himself and he shrugged off his flannel and walked out the front door to set the bench chairs up with her.
A little while later, he noticed his mother perk up at something. Mango automatically looked up as well and followed her gaze. His eyes set on their neighbor's house, where a woman was walking out of it. He was about to look back down when he spotted something beside her. Someone beside her.
A guy, probably not much older than Mango himself. Shoulder-length silver hair. Silver.
Mango stared in shock as that same silver color walked alongside the woman. It hadn't been an animal that watched him, of course. It was an actual person.
Reflecting on that thought made Mango feel sick to his stomach. He was already being observed like an animal in a cage by this random person who lived next door. What a fucking great surprise. He gritted his teeth together as he quickly fixed the last of the chairs to stand upwards before he darted into the house, leaving his mother confused in the front yard.
He heard how his mother yelled out to the neighbor in greeting, and it made Mango want to crawl into his skin. What is she thinking? What if they see me? What if they end up taunting my mother if they see me? What if–
Mango caught himself before he got too lost in the ‘what ifs’, not wanting to break down in the middle of the living room. Chatting could be heard from the open window, and he held his breath. He begged that if anyone could read his mind, bless him so that his mother wouldn't make their neighbors aware of his existence.
However, the uneasy feeling did not stop him from eavesdropping. He stayed close to the open window, though not so much that if you looked in, you'd be able to see him. He kept hidden.
“This is my son, Peter. Don't be afraid to tell me if he causes any trouble for you,” A woman's voice spoke softly. Her voice gave the impression that she was kind, though strangers always made him uneasy. Mango listened to his mom converse with the two, and it made him a margin sad that he couldn't be out there for her to show off as well. He was frankly just too ashamed of himself. He felt like a mistake, and he wasn't sure if his mother would want to show off someone like him to people who didn't know them yet. People who could end up spreading rumors, and make them have to go through the process of moving all over again. Mango didn't want that, he never wanted to put that kind of stress on his mother because of him. Not then, not ever again.
He turned and was about to back away from the window when he caught his mother's voice perk up cheerfully. “I have a son around your age, Peter. I'm sure he'd be glad to have a friend.”
Mango's stomach dropped into his stomach. She couldn't possibly be mentioning him right after meeting these people. To his stalker, nonetheless. Mango knows he couldn't blame her, she didn't know, but thinking about interacting with others made him nauseous.
He stood as if frozen in the living room when he heard the front door open.