Paper Hearts

l e e

theodore lee
❝ the new boy next door ❞

ramona remembers how lonely she had been when both her elder siblings had gone to college. she was glad to have the house all by herself for the first couple of weeks but it then became too quiet. her parents were out on business trips often and her siblings were in different countries.

then came theodore lee, who ramona had first met in her parent's bedroom with a baseball bat in her hand. and then came a lifetime worth of screams for their neighbors. theo had tried and ramona supposed he managed to convince her that he was no thief, he just sneaked into the wrong house. along with the fact that he didn't come along with his family when the moving truck arrived the other day and that he got the address for his new house next door but that turned out horribly wrong, which ramona supposed it made some sort of sense.

over the next few months, theo became her major source of social interaction. they'd spend the nights up on the side of the roof of theo's house, which was slightly bigger than ramona's roof—just a few steps away. if they had decided to take a leap of faith, they'd easily land on the roof of ramona's house, which was convenient. ramona, however, preferred going the safer way, through the balconies both their rooms had. all she had to do was sit on theo's railings with her legs over the edge, stretched out her arm, grab a hold of the railing on her balcony and jump. easy.

that is, until the boy next door leaped over the railing and reached for ramona's stretched out arm and instead, ended up falling several feet to the ground. theo's parents had decided to keep their son away from ramona's bad influence after that.

turns out, your mind doesn't exactly cope well with sudden isolation. theodore lee fractured a couple of bones—and broke ramona's heart in the process.