I found a shoe outside my house this morning. It’s a boot, actually, that has been abandoned near the trash bin that was emptied yesterday. A single black boot. When I bent down to look at it, I could see the leather that had been worn down into a shiny circle on the toe and the spot where the lace had torn through the eye and the initials that had been etched into the back of the tongue with a sharpie. EK. I wondered where the other boot was. And then I left, because, after all, it’s just a shoe.

On the way home from the bus stop, the boot was still there and had begun functioning as a snow catcher. The flakes drifted frantically from the sky and slowly, slowly hid the soggy boot. I figure my neighbor wouldn’t care. My neighbor Eloise, I mean. I think It’s her boot. She’s gone now, though, gone to somewhere more exciting to do more exciting things. By that I mean she moved to California earlier this year with her father, which I can understand, because I bet you that there is more sunshine in a month in a square foot of California than a whole year in this stupid town.

Eloise and I never talked much. We would get off the bus cradling a precarious silence between us, and then we would drift apart, Eloise in front and me in back. Then she would take her mail from the mailbox and leave without saying goodbye. I didn’t really want to be friends with her because she was the type of girl who was ready to graduate from the moment she stepped into school freshman year and I was the girl who clung onto the safety of high school for as long as I could. She hung out with the older kids and went to parties and dyed her hair aqua blue. But she was cool. There was no denying that.

Since our houses are directly next to each other on the cul de sac, I could see into her kitchen where she would eat dinner alone every night from the window by my desk. I felt bad for her, in a way, because her dad was never there, and I wasn’t even sure if her mom existed, and sometimes she just seemed sad.

She had a job at Panera, I think. I would watch her step out of her car with her green collared shirt and khakis and sigh. Every single day. I imagine that she had friends there. A boss named Tom or Jim or something. She would take two blueberry muffins home every night and give one to her dad and put one aside for her breakfast. Then she would probably feed her cat and lock the cat door and go upstairs and take a shower, watching a liquid rainbow stream from her hair, and brush her teeth and forget about her homework and go to bed. I’d bet she was tired. I sure would be if I worked a six hour shift after school.

About two months after Eloise moved, I found her cat, Gretchen, on my front step. I guess she had run away. I once read that cats are really good with direction and can find their home, even if it’s hundreds of miles away. We sometimes put out some milk and dry food for her, but I think she’s okay without any help. Kind of like Eloise.

Now, I look out the window by my desk and into Eloise’s old kitchen, which is now empty. No half-eaten bowls of Cocoa Puffs or canned beans. All there’s left of Eloise here is her cat and one stupid old boot that’s now invisible, save a small strip of black from one of the laces. Her house is kind of run down, and, to be honest, I don’t think anyone’s going to buy it. Not anytime soon, at least. I’m actually pretty happy, because it would be weird seeing someone else in that house.

In a year, I’ll be in college, and I’ll forget about Eloise. She’s probably already forgotten about me. I’m thankful for that window, though. When I looked through it, it was like I was living a dual life: one part as boring, ordinary me and the other as a girl with colorful hair who had to grow up too soon. I hate to admit it, but when she left, it was as if part of me had died. The part that didn’t even know my name.