I live in one of those super tight-knit neighborhoods where everyone knows everybody, and people actually look out for each other. But Mr. Green was a totally different breed. He bought the place right across the street from me about three years back. He looked to be in his fifties, probably a good decade older than I was.
Right after he moved in, I decided to play the friendly neighbor. I baked a fresh loaf of banana bread, walked over, and knocked on his front door.
It cracked open just a tiny bit, and he stared at me through the gap like I was the grim reaper.
“Hey there, welcome to the block! I’m Jessica,” I said, putting on my best smile.
He didn’t even crack a grin. He just muttered the quietest “thank you” I’ve ever heard, grabbed the bread, and shut the door right in my face.
I knocked one more time and yelled, “Enjoy the bread, but I need that plate back!”
The door opened just long enough for him to shove the empty plate into my hands with a super stiff, uncomfortable smile. Obviously, I figured the guy was just painfully, incredibly introverted.
Even though he kept to himself, I always kind of felt him lingering around. One afternoon, not long after that first meeting, I was out front planting some white tulips. Out of nowhere, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up—I just got this creeping feeling that I was being watched.
I snapped my head up. He was standing over by his car holding a plastic grocery bag, with his cat weaving in and out of his legs. When he realized I caught him staring, he gave me this incredibly rigid, awkward little wave.
“Hey! Glad I bumped into you,” I called out. “I’ve been meaning to formally ask your name.”
“My name?” he stuttered. “It’s… uh… Green.”
“Just Green? Or is it Mr. Green?” I joked.
“Green,” he said, forcing that same awkward smile. “Just Green.”
Then he basically spun on his heels and speed-walked into his house.
Later that same night, I was hauling my empty trash cans up the driveway when I heard someone call out from across the asphalt.
“Jessica?”
I froze and turned around. “Yeah?”
He had walked right up to the very edge of his property line. His cat was sitting right by his shoes like a tiny little bodyguard.
“Your… your yard. The flowers look really nice,” he stammered.
I chuckled. “Thanks. Honestly, plants are the only living things I can actually keep alive.”
A tiny, genuine smile actually crossed his face for a split second before vanishing. He quickly scooped his cat up and darted back indoors.
Months turned into years, and Mr. Green stayed just as reclusive and awkward as ever. He wasn’t a jerk or anything, but if we had a neighborhood block party for the Fourth of July, he’d show up for exactly fifteen minutes and then vanish. On Halloween, he’d just leave a plastic bowl of candy on his porch and keep the lights off.
But then came the day my entire world turned upside down.
I was chilling on the couch reading a book when someone knocked on my door. I opened it to find Mr. Green standing there, looking way more panicked than usual. He was sweating bullets, and his face was completely drained of color—he looked like death warmed over.
“I am so sorry to bother you tonight,” he rushed out. “I have to leave for a sudden business trip. Would it be too much of a burden if you watched my cat, Jasper, for just a couple of days?”
I looked closely at him. The guy looked like he was about to shatter into a million pieces. “Mr. Green, are you alright?”
“Yes, yes, everything is perfectly fine. The trip just came up… out of nowhere,” he said, staring at his shoes. “I’m just terrified that no one will be here to feed Jasper.”
“Don’t you have any relatives who can step in?” I asked.
He took a really shaky breath. “No.”
My heart honestly broke for the guy. I was adopted as a baby, and even though I love my adoptive family, things always felt a little emotionally distant. Plus, no matter how weird the guy was, nobody deserves to be completely alone in the world.
“Of course I’ll watch him,” I told him.
I literally saw the heavy tension leave his shoulders. “Thank you. Seriously. You have no idea what this means to me.”
Right then, a taxi rolled up to the curb behind him. He shoved a bag of kibble and a cat carrier into my hands, and without another word, he hopped into the back of the cab.
I stood there holding a very confused cat, watching the car’s taillights fade into the distance, as this massive, sinking feeling of dread settled in my stomach.
Three days went by.
Absolutely zero word from Mr. Green.
By day four, I dialed the emergency contact number he scribbled down for me. It just went straight to an automated voicemail box.
“Hey, Mr. Green. Just touching base,” I said after the beep. “Jasper is doing totally fine. Give me a shout whenever you get a minute.”
A week passed. Then a full fortnight.
Jasper wasn’t really a temporary guest anymore; he was basically my roommate. He’d sleep at the foot of my bed, but you could tell the poor guy was stressed. Every single time I walked near my front door, he’d sprint ahead of me, jump up on the window glass, and just stare at the dark, empty house across the street.
“He wouldn’t just abandon you, Jasper,” I murmured one night, rubbing his chin. “He’s gonna come back.”
But honestly? I was lying to myself. My gut was screaming that something was terribly wrong.
I finally caved and called the cops the next morning. An officer drove out, and I waited on the sidewalk while he did a welfare check inside the house.
He came out a little while later looking really grim.
“Ma’am, you mentioned your neighbor claimed he was going out of town for work, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah, he asked me to cat-sit. Said he’d only be gone a few days.”
“Well, there’s absolutely no sign of a break-in or foul play, but the water and power have been completely shut off at the mains. The kitchen cabinets are totally empty, and there isn’t a single scrap of food in the fridge.”
“Wait, what does that even mean?” I asked.
“I couldn’t tell you, ma’am. Aside from that, the place looks untouched.”
They officially filed a missing persons report, but since there was zero proof of a crime, their hands were basically tied.
Time went on. The neighbors eventually stopped gossiping about the “weird quiet guy” who vanished. But I just couldn’t shake it from my mind.
A few days later, Jasper came darting into the house smelling like literal sewage. I had no choice; the cat was getting a bath.
“Just chill out,” I grumbled as he wrestled me in the bathroom sink. “You’re acting like I’m killing you.”
I went to unclip his thick nylon collar so it wouldn’t get soaked, and a weird glint of metal caught my eye. The fabric had this weird, bulky seam that clearly didn’t belong there.
I squinted at it. Someone had gone out of their way to hand-stitch a tiny hidden pocket right into the lining.
I grabbed some small scissors from my makeup drawer and carefully cut the threads.
A tiny silver key slipped out and dropped right into my palm. Wrapped around it was a folded-up scrap of paper.
I peeled it open.
Dear Jessica, if you are reading this, the time has come for the truth. I am so exhausted from hiding. This key unlocks an apartment at the address listed below. Everything will make sense once you go there.
I just stared at the street address. It was in a neighborhood about twenty minutes away.
“You get a pass on the bath for now,” I told Jasper, swinging the bathroom door open. “I’m gonna go figure out what the hell happened to your owner.”
Before long, I was standing in a dingy hallway staring at the door to apartment 4B.
I slid the little silver key into the deadbolt. It turned effortlessly.
I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
I made it about three steps before I froze completely. I slowly spun around, taking in the room. This wasn’t a normal living space!
A blood-curdling scream ripped out of my lungs before I could even muffle it. I stumbled backward, slamming into the doorframe, frantically digging my phone out of my pocket to call 911.
“911, what’s the nature of your emergency?” the dispatcher answered.
My eyes were glued to the walls. They were completely plastered with photographs. There was a zoomed-in shot of me checking my mail. There was a photo of me laughing at the local Fourth of July parade. There was even a picture of me planting those white tulips—taken on the exact same day I caught him staring at me. I felt like I was going to throw up.
“There… there are photos of me everywhere in here! My neighbor… oh my god, I know my neighbor has been stalking me!”
The cops showed up with sirens blazing a few minutes later.
Two armed officers cleared the apartment while I stood out in the hallway, practically vibrating with panic.
The commotion brought a few people out of their units. A lady in a fuzzy bathrobe poked her head out.
“Did something happen to Thomas?” she asked, looking worried.
“If you’re talking about Thomas, that guy hasn’t actually lived in this unit for like three years,” a guy yelled from the doorway across the hall. “He just drops by every now and then to grab his mail.”
I looked at them, my voice completely shaking. “Wait, you guys know him?”
“Yeah, of course,” the guy shrugged. “Super nice dude. Just really quiet. Liked to keep to himself.”
Isn’t that the exact textbook description they always give for total creeps?
Suddenly, one of the cops inside yelled out, “Hey, you’re gonna want to come look at this.”
I forced my legs to walk back into the room. Sitting dead center on a small dining table was a thick manila envelope. Written on the front, in that same neat handwriting, were the words: For Her.
The cop looked over at me. “Is this meant for you?”
“I… I think so,” I stammered.
He tore the envelope open and slid out a massive stack of paperwork. I watched his eyes scan the pages, and his expression instantly morphed from hard suspicion into pure, unfiltered pity. He looked at me, then back down at the files.
“Ma’am… is this the name you were given at birth?”
He turned a piece of paper around. It was a certified, original birth certificate from three decades ago. My first name was on it, but the last name was the one I had before I was put into the foster system.
And listed right beneath my name was another one: Thomas. Sharing that exact same original last name. “Green” was just a fake alias!
This stack of government papers proved he was my biological brother!
“No, that’s impossible. My adoptive parents… they swore I didn’t have any siblings,” I whispered.
The officer gently handed me a handwritten letter that had been tucked between the legal documents.
Jess, the letter started. I never gave up looking for you. I was ten years old when the state split us up. You were just a tiny baby. The social workers promised me you were too young to ever remember my face, and I honestly prayed they were right. I never wanted you to carry the trauma of the day they tore our family apart. I didn’t want you to grow up feeling that massive, empty hole in your chest like I did.
My legs gave out, and I collapsed into a hard wooden chair.
“There’s something else in here,” the cop said gently.
He pulled out a stack of medical charts and hospice admission forms. The intake date stamped on the top was the exact same evening Thomas had knocked on my door and handed me his cat.
“Oh my god. He didn’t go missing,” I gasped.
“No, ma’am, he didn’t,” the officer replied. “He checked himself into an end-of-life care facility.”
I slowly turned my head and looked at the creepy photo wall again. Suddenly, everything looked completely different.
They were all taken from far away in crowded, public areas. He was standing way in the back during that street fair. He was sitting on a park bench across the road. He wasn’t some sick predator stalking a random woman—he was just a heartbroken older brother quietly watching his baby sister live her life.
The lady in the bathrobe yelled from the hallway, “Hold on, you’re Thomas’s little sister?”
“His sister?!” the other neighbor chimed in. “He talked about finding you all the time!”
“I am,” I sobbed. “And he actually did find me.”
I didn’t even stick around to let the cops finish taking my statement. I snatched up the birth certificate and the letter, and sprinted for the door.
I needed to get to that hospice center immediately.
The care facility was incredibly quiet and smelled like bleach. I practically ran up to the front desk, my heart hammering against my ribs.
The receptionist clicked her mouse a few times when I gave her Thomas’s name. “And what is your relation to the patient, sweetie?”
“I’m… I’m his little sister.” I slapped the birth certificate down on the countertop. “Please, you have to let me see him.”
She glanced at the old document, then looked up at my red, tear-streaked face. Her whole demeanor softened. “He was actually murmuring about you just this morning. Right before he slipped into a very deep sleep.”
A nurse quickly escorted me down a long hall to Thomas’s room.
I dragged a plastic chair right up to the edge of his mattress and grabbed his frail hand. “Thomas, it’s Jess. I made it. I’m here.”
His fingers weakly squeezed mine. His heavy eyelids slowly fluttered open.
“My little Jess?” he rasped.
“I’m right here. I had absolutely no idea about you. Nobody ever told me.”
He managed a tiny, exhausted smile. “I wanted to come clean so many times, but I was just too much of a coward. I figured… I figured I’d just let Jasper deliver the message when I was gone.”
“Shh, it’s okay,” I cried. “The only thing that matters right now is that we’re finally together.”
The nurse stepped back into the room holding a medical clipboard, looking very serious. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, but we need a signature from his official next-of-kin to authorize his comfort-care meds.”
I looked down at Thomas. He just gave me a tiny nod. I grabbed the pen from the nurse and signed my name on the dotted line without hesitating.
For the absolute first time in my entire life, I wasn’t just a lonely only child floating through the world. I was someone’s fierce protector. I finally had real blood family.