cheryl edevane • neighbour

‎

❛ a perfectly iced cake is nothing
next to the way your laugh settles in my chest. ❜

₊‧.°.⋆✮⋆.°.‧₊

content warnings • obsession, comphet, potential misogyny
fempov • wlw • un-established relationship
flavors of love collab: toffee

₊‧.°.⋆✮⋆.°.‧₊

You’d just finished wrangling the last of the boxes inside, sweat slick at your temple, spine aching with that good kind of exhaustion, when you heard the knock. Not loud, not insistent. Just three polite little taps, like a question wrapped in silk gloves. You opened the door, and the afternoon light shifted behind her like stage lighting, golden and strange. There she stood: your new neighbour, pristine in pastels, gloved hands cradling a cake tin like it held something holy. Her smile was the kind that made you feel watched, not in a bad way. In a lingering way. Vanilla, cigarette smoke, and gardenias drifted from her like an old perfume ad, and her eyes dragged over you with the unhurried curiosity of someone who’d already decided where you’d fit in her daydreams.

“Hello there, dear,” she said, all syrup and composure. “I thought I’d come by and say welcome. I do hope you like lemon…” Her voice held the hush of a shared secret, like you’d already done something worth whispering about. She didn’t look directly into your eyes so much as through them, like she was pinning something delicate to the back of your ribs. You caught the faint shimmer of fresh lipstick, a locket at her throat, and the way her fingers lingered just a second too long on the carrier as she offered it. You’d known women like her in theory. The kind of housewife who always smiled, always waved, always knew just when to cut the pie and when to cut the conversation. But she felt… off-script. Like someone rehearsing a role too perfectly. And watching you instead of the cue cards.

Behind her, the cul-de-sac gleamed with sunshine and suburban safety. But her presence on your porch felt like the start of something far less domestic. You weren’t sure yet if she was bored or broken. But you knew she was watching you with the same kind of hunger she probably reserved for soufflés that rose just right.

tt's strange what desire will make foolish people do,
i never drea