"My family is... quiet," I said. "My parents work a lot. Usually I get home and I'm alone until night."
"Doesn't it bother you?"
"No. It gives me time to read, to draw." I touched the sketchbook in my lap.
Alex looked at it. "The perspective one?"
"The same. I'm practicing the horizon line. I can't get it right."
"The horizon line is easy," she said, and there was a flash of her old intellectual arrogance in her voice. "It's the height of your eyes. Everything above that line you see from below; everything below you see from above. It's geometry, not magic."
"Then tell me, what do you see from your horizon line?"
She looked at me, and for a moment her expression was vulnerable. "I see my family making fools of themselves. Haley getting everything without effort. Luke being forgiven for everything. And I see my mother worrying more about what Haley does than about what I think."
The bus stopped in front of the school. Alex stood, adjusting her backpack.
"See you at the stop," she said, and left.
I sat for a moment longer, the sketchbook open on my lap, the pencil-drawn horizon line crossing the page. She was right: it was geometry. But it was also something more.
4:15 PM - The return
The afternoon bus arrived fifteen minutes late. When I got off, the street was silent. Too silent.
I walked toward my house, but my feet veered onto the sidewalk that passed in front of the Dunphy house. It wasn't spying, I told myself. It was just the usual route. And then I saw it.
Phil was on the porch, his back to me, a BB gun in his hand. Luke stood in front of him, eyes wide, hands clenched at his sides. Claire was in the doorway, arms crossed, with an expression that wasn't anger, but something worse: disappointment.
"I want you to know I'm not enjoying this," Claire said, her voice tight. "But it's an important lesson, so... take it. Remember it."
Luke swallowed. "You're too close. It's going to hurt."
"It's supposed to hurt."
"Then why are you smiling?"
Claire blinked. "What? I'm not..."
They looked at each other. One second. Two. Then Claire lowered the gun.
"Forget it. I can't do this. The point is you're scared. I think you learned the lesson."
Phil let out a sigh of relief so audible I heard it from the sidewalk.
Claire went inside, but before closing the door, she turned, raised the gun, and fired.
Pop!
Haley's scream came from inside, sharp and furious. "Mom! You hit me!"
Claire threw the door open with an expression that tried to be innocent but couldn't hide her satisfaction. "Oh, hi! I was just dropping off some laundry. Is this a bad time?"
"Yes!" Haley shouted.
"Oh. Well." Claire poked her head in. "Can you close the door, please?"
Phil's voice came from inside, conciliatory: "Honey, your mom isn't always so... great with these things as..."
Pop!
"Ow!" Phil yelled.
"What's wrong with this thing?" Claire asked with false innocence.
Pop!
"Ow!"
I stood on the sidewalk, hands in my pockets, watching the scene unfold behind the half-open curtains. It was exactly as I remembered it: every line, every gesture, every moment of physical comedy was in place. But there was something that wasn't in the canon.
On the second-floor window, Alex sat on the sill, knees against her chest, a book open on her lap. She wasn't reading. Her eyes were fixed on the chaos unfolding inside her house, but her expression wasn't one of scientific observation.
It was weariness.
I walked until I was level with her window. She saw me. She didn't look surprised.
"Everything okay?" I asked quietly.
She held up the book so I could see the cover. It was Thermodynamics for Engineers. "Everything's under control," she said, but her voice lacked conviction.
"You want company?"
She looked at me for a second. I saw the girl she had been in the supermarket years ago, the one who corrected her father about the sodium in soup. But I also saw someone else. Someone who was learning that the world didn't always follow the rules she believed in.
"I have to finish this chapter," she said.
"Then finish it. I can read down here."
And so I stayed, leaning against the fence that separated our houses, my sketchbook open in my hands, tracing perspective lines that looked more and more like the windows of her house.
She stayed at her window, the book on her lap, but she didn't turn many pages.
8:00 PM - Dinner
I wasn't invited to dinner. I didn't expect to be. It was a canonical event: a family gathering to introduce Lily, Mitchell and Cam's new daughter. I was the neighbor, Alex's friend, not part of that circle.
But from my bedroom window, I could see the lights on in the Dunphy house, the silhouettes moving behind the curtains. I could imagine the scene: the Dunphys preparing to leave for Cam and Mitchell's, how the scene would unfold there with The Lion King music, Jay making uncomfortable comments, Gloria correcting him with her mix of fire and tenderness, Claire trying to keep order while everything fell apart around her.
And Alex, in some corner, observing it all with her scientist's eyes, calculating variables, taking mental notes somewhere invisible.
At 10:15, my phone vibrated. It was a text from a number I hadn't saved in my contacts, but I recognized it instantly.
"The horizon line is at the height of your eyes. You're not drawing it wrong; you're just looking from the wrong place."
I smiled. I saved the message. I didn't reply.
It wasn't necessary.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Phil got hit with a BB gun twice. Two times.
Claire discovered her inner sniper.
Haley learned that karma sometimes comes in the form of a pellet.
And Leo stayed by the fence while Alex watched the chaos from her window, a thermodynamics book in her lap and exhaustion in her eyes.
Who's the real victim here? Phil or Haley? 🎯
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