Fear urges on my heart and my pulse beats in my ears. "Most people would be scared of having a murderer in their room," he says, taking a cautious step forward. "You told me you were Aaron." "It was the first name I thought of. He's my little brother. I didn't want you to know who I was, at the time." He runs his tongue across his lips. "I haven't seen him in ten years, and I knew he wasn't coming back." He's moving now and I realize I'm trying to shift toward the door and he's matching my movements. But he's not closing the space in between us. Our eyes remain locked in a duel and I feel like I might get swallowed by the pull of his dark irises. "Why did you come back now?" "I never left. I never ran away like they said. I've been here the whole time." I try to ingest his words, but my thoughts are racing and my head seems overfull. "How? How is it that you still look so young? You don't look like you aged a day and it's been over ten years. You must be almost thirty." He stops moving, his eyebrows knitting together.
