Ben

It was gardening day.

Ben stared me down with those eyes and told me he doesn’t like flowers.

‘That’s okay, Ben,’ I smiled. ‘You don’t have to like flowers. So. What do you like, then, hey?’

No response.

You see, we’re all different, but Ben’s different from even the most different of us.

Ben isn’t broken.

In fact, Ben hardly knows me, and yet every week he puts my bins out without me even asking him to. He sits on the porch and watches the birds drift as I tug at the weeds and silently curse into the garden beds. He grabs the lawnmower cord and yanks it with one hundred percent confidence that this is one thing he does know how to do.

Ben’s just…Ben.

And I’m just the new girl on the block.

The new girl on my own block.

And the new girl on Ben’s block, too.