I really like the idea of obsessive!driver or stalker!driver. Sue me.
maybe there's a part 2 to this?
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Driver had little vices. He was a simple man, and vices presented disruptions in the efficient, mechanical rhythm of his life. There were no cigarettes; he did not drink; he did not binge-watch. There were little retreats of simple pleasure he allowed himself.
Except there was *you*. You, who had just moved into the apartment next to his, on the fourth floor of a less-than-mediocre building in a somewhat questionable neighbourhood.
For the first four, blissful days, you were just another nameless neighbour. Driver did not form attachments all that easily, and you had not done anything to evoke such a reaction. He gave a smile when he passed you in the hallway, didn’t speak, didn’t look back to see you go into the elevator. You were simply another new stable factor in the environment he kept in a careful balance.
His social life - the term social in the broadest of ways - was limited to its essentials, like the furniture and decoration in his apartment. He spoke to his boss, to customers, and occasionally to a cashier - very politely, he hoped - at the grocery store if he had to. It was not so much that he hated people, or ornamentation for that matter. At the start, it was simply not something for him, like how one would turn down one flavour of ice cream in favour of another. A simple preference. The whole thing had gotten slightly more complicated as his less-than-legal job entered new stages. At that point, it was easier to keep people out, anyway. He didn’t mind all that much.
Until you, of course. Four days after you moved into the apartment next to his - a Friday evening, now - you came home late. Coincidentally, Driver did, too. He’d had a job, tonight - a success, at least for him. The two men in the backseat had seemed displeased with each other. Driver suspected the matter would escalate once they were officially ‘done’ with the robbery and getaway. It was, deliberately and fortunately, none of his concern once the two had gotten out of his car.
You were in the hallway when Driver stepped out of the elevator. It was some time past midnight, Driver reckoned. He had no clue as to where you’d been, except for ‘out’, judging by your clothing. When he’d called the elevator down to the parking deck of the building, it had originated on the fourth floor. He guessed you were the last to take it, and must have arrived moments before him.
The hallway was quiet. The overhead lights were dimmed and cast a slightly orange glow over the space and the tiled floor. Your head was dipped, so the light didn’t illuminate it properly. Driver only saw your figure and the shake of your shoulders. You seemed to be digging through a bag, a little frantically.
Driver didn’t speak. He was tired, in this nicely satisfying way. His shoulders ached a little, and his lower back was begging him for a good night’s sleep. He’d been planning on eating the leftovers from tonight’s dinner before giving in to his body’s request. When you didn’t look up to initiate an interaction, he remained quiet and started to cross the distance to his apartment door.
You must not have noticed him until then, because suddenly your head snapped up. The light tinged your cheeks orange. Driver could still make out the flush underneath that, as well as the damp, glistening tracks below your eyes.
“Evening,” you mumbled, probably assuming the situation - or Driver - required some verbal acknowledgement.
You’d been crying, clearly. Maybe you still were, actually. Driver looked at you for another moment, with his hands still in the pockets of his jacket. His right hand toyed with the metal ring attached to the few keys he had.
“Hi,” he replied, voice low, before stepping up to his own door.
When you noticed he was content to leave it there for now, you continued digging through the bag. Only when you managed to pull out the set of keys he suspected you had been looking for, did he notice your hands were shaking. Your right hand was wrapped in a white bandage. They dropped to the floor with a sharp jingle. Driver’s eyes followed you. His ears managed to catch the whispered curse word, shaky under your breath.
“Need help?” he asked.
You looked up again and met his eyes now. Driver heard a small sniffle. You bent down and picked up the keys. He noticed your hands were still unsteady. The bandaged one was held a little awkwardly.
“I’m okay.”
You shook your head as your free, unbandaged hand - the bag was slung over your shoulder again - wiped at your cheeks hastily. Driver thought you looked surprisingly nice like this - *earnest,* and real. You threw in a smile that was a little less real, he thought. Driver nodded, and pulled out his own keys.
Your key scraped against the metal of the lock before the jingle of them meeting the tile of the hallway made itself known again.
“Fuck, okay, yeah - can you? - yeah,” you started. Your bandaged hand had picked up the keys from the floor once again, but didn’t make another go for the lock in the door. The material of the white bandage was thick, and seemed to restrict the movement of your hand. You couldn’t bend it enough to hold the key stable - your thumb and index finger strained at the attempt, and it caused a wince on your face.
Driver nodded. With a few quick strides, he was beside you, in front of your door. His fingers brushed against yours when you held out the keys to him in your open palm. Twisting the key into the lock, he used his other hand to push open your apartment door.
“Thank you,” you sighed. Your uninjured hand ran through your hair before accepting the keys back.
Driver smiled, nodded. He went back to his own apartment. Your door was closed before he’d opened his own. He ate the leftover rice and chicken, got into bed, and promptly fell asleep.
It was the next day that you’d truly planted yourself in his orbit. You went from nameless neighbour - stable constant in the backdrop - to a blip on the radar. It was a little past eleven in the morning when there was a knock on Driver’s door. He sat at the kitchen table, gloved hands tinkering away at the latest project.
Due to Driver’s social circle being so small - though existent, thanks, since Shannon was a member of that set - he didn’t expect visitors, ever. There were no deliveries he knew of, either. Especially not on a Saturday morning.
When he opened the door, he was greeted by your face. The window at the end of the hallway let the sunlight in, now, and the overhead lights weren’t dimmed anymore. He’d seen you before - before last night, as well - but he had never really paid much attention to your face. It was properly illuminated, now, and a smile adorned it. Driver felt inclined to smile back, like some magnetic pull.
“Morning,” you said. You forwent the ‘good’ again. Apparently, it was a usual thing, and not a consequence of your mood last night. “Thanks again for last night. Accident at work.”
You held up the bandaged hand and wiggled the fingers to illustrate your point.
“I, uh, never got around to introducing myself. So this is both a thank you and the whole being neighbourly,” you added. The smile was still there when your other hand - smooth, uninjured - held out a small blue container, and you gave him your name.
He turned it over in his mind for a second, like trying to shape his tongue around the syllables. His eyes were on the container you were offering. You smelled of vanilla, or something else sweet, he realised as he took it. The smile on his face remained when he tilted his head questioningly.
“Cookies. They’re plain - to play it safe. Unless you have a gluten allergy?”
“I don’t,” he replied simply. And, a beat later: “Thank you.”
Your smile brightened. Driver’s eyes were stuck on it, like a coat snagging on a door handle when walking past, stopping him in his tracks. It was something other than a simple fact of it being a pretty smile - though he would call it that, surely. It felt like a flash of it was enough to expel all air from his lungs. It made him horribly *curious*, almost giddily so.
“Yeah,” you added onto the smile. Holding up a hand to wave goodbye, you stepped back in the direction of your apartment. Driver had no good reason to make you stay and smile like that at him any longer, so he let you. His own door closed with a soft click, only after yours had.
From then on, Driver started paying attention. He could hear you through the wall, occasionally. You were often singing or whistling some tune. Most noticeably so around six every evening. The space your kitchen occupied was closest to Driver’s living room, he suspected. It was when he could hear you best; he pictured you cooking dinner, swaying around your kitchen - what did it look like? What colour were your dish towels? - and singing. Sometimes, if he paid attention, he could hear the music playing underneath your voice. Most of the time, he only heard your singing.
It felt like he was invited into something intimate, through the thin wall. He had been made part of your little ritual. After a few days, it became one of his own. He started cooking or heating up his dinner earlier. He’d sit on his couch, television turned off, and listen attentively at six every day, like clockwork. You were usually on time. Driver got to eat his dinner to the sounds of you singing and humming your way through half an hour of music. Some mornings, if you were up before he left for work, he got to enjoy the same ceremony while you made breakfast or coffee or tea.
You seemed to carry a noise with you, wherever you went. You weren’t *loud* or overly chatty, but you brought a melody with you, like you lived in your own kind of music. If he came across you in the hallway or elevator, you were already humming.
Driver tried to imagine what your apartment looked like, based on the music you listened to. He thought it’d be much more of a home than his apartment was. There were probably dozens of details around your apartment that showed who you were, he thought. Pictures, maybe artwork or posters on the wall; did you keep plants?; what colour were your bedsheets and couch and did you keep your place tidy or messy or was it a combination of both? Driver never considered himself greedy, but it was hard to stave off the curiosity and want for more, ever since becoming part of this intimate moment of your life and home.
You’ve become a little safe space in his inner life. He goes about his day, knowing there’s this little place within his mind tucked away, and that’s where you are. Sometimes, while he’s tinkering on a car, he runs a finger across the edge of that little box, and gets to think about you effortlessly rendering Mrs Robinson. Or he’s waiting in the car, watching five minutes tick by on the watch strapped to the steering wheel, and he tries to pull to mind the whiff of your perfume he’d caught when walking past each other in the hall. On the way back, he’ll tap his fingers on his own thigh and imagine it’s your hand, you next to him in the passenger seat. Sometimes at night, he presses a hand to his mouth and imagines it’s yours as the other travels further down.