Noah Carter first noticed something was off about the girl next door when she apologized to a plant.
Not like, metaphorically. Not in a "haha I forgot to water you" way. He meant a full-on, soft, serious, "I'm sorry, I should've checked on you sooner," whispered at two in the morning on the apartment balcony.
He only heard it because the walls in their building were thin and he couldn't sleep.
At the time, he told himself she was just… really into gardening.
Which was still the explanation he was going with, even three weeks later, despite mounting evidence that his neighbor, Elara Weiss, might be the strangest person he had ever met.
She had moved in quietly. No moving truck, no loud relatives, no boxes cluttering the hallway. One day the apartment was empty, and the next, she was there — slim, pale, long light hair, wearing a simple black dress and holding a single potted flower like it was fragile in a way that went beyond "don't drop it."
She had bowed slightly when they first ran into each other outside their doors.
"I'm Elara. I just moved in next door."
Her voice had been calm. Polite. Distant, but not cold.
Noah, halfway through unlocking his door and already tired from school, had blinked at her for half a second too long before replying, "Uh—Noah. I live… here. Obviously. Next door. To you. Which you just said."
Great first impression.
She hadn't laughed at him. Hadn't looked annoyed, either. She'd just tilted her head a little, like she found him mildly interesting, and said, "It's nice to meet you, Noah."
He'd gone inside and immediately shut the door, leaning against it.
"Cool," he muttered to himself. "Pretty, polite, and I forgot how to speak English."
That should've been the end of it.
Just a new neighbor. A quiet girl who smelled faintly like flowers and kept odd hours.
Except normal neighbors didn't make the air feel heavier when they stepped into the hallway.
Normal neighbors didn't work at the flower shop down the street and somehow make every plant in the display window look brighter than the ones outside.
And normal neighbors definitely didn't stand barefoot on their balcony at two in the morning, looking up at the moon like they were waiting for it to say something back.
Noah didn't know what Elara Weiss's deal was.
He just knew that every time she said, "Don't worry," things turned out okay in ways that felt less like luck and more like a decision someone else had already made.
And that was… probably fine.
Probably.