18

few days later, Alex was sitting at a large dining table sipping on his fourth cup of coffee. He was sitting across from a girl who couldn't have been any younger than sixteen, with long hair and wearing a blue jumpsuit covered in red patches. She was talking loudly as she chewed on a piece of apple. She looked up at him as soon as he entered, and immediately stopped eating and pushed herself off the bench, moving around the table to stand behind him.

"What are your powers? Are you an angel or a demon or something like that? How did you become a ghost? Who put you here? Is everyone dead? Oh yeah! Where is my sister? Can I come with you? Where are you going to take me? Please tell me it's somewhere warm. Like Florida. Or Antarctica. Or Alaska. Or-" Before she could continue, a man walked in.

Alex stared straight forward as the man approached. He couldn't bring himself to look at her; he knew that she must be disappointed. If this was some kind of joke the man had started playing on her. It probably wasn't meant to be taken seriously, but that didn't mean it wasn't true. Alex had always felt so alone. He thought that maybe there was someone out there for him. Someone to show him how to love unconditionally. Someone to share a life with. Someone...but all those hopes and dreams had been shattered just a few hours ago. The disappointment he expected to see in his friends eyes when he told them he wasn't coming back made him feel worse; he shouldn't be surprised, they had been his best friends for nearly nine years now. Still, he couldn't help the slight hope he felt rising up inside him.

The man placed a kiss on his wife's forehead, earning an annoyed groan from her, and motioned for her to sit back down. Alex watched in silence as the two of them began chatting. It wasn't until he was halfway through his third cup of coffee that Alex finally broke the tense silence in the air. He didn't mean to eavesdrop, but the two of them were definitely loud enough to be heard.

"Do you remember that time your dad found us in the attic, honey?" The woman questioned, a hint of amusement in her voice.

"Of course I remember. Remember that old photo album he showed us and showed us that photo of you holding the twins?" The man questioned incredulously. His tone was clearly teasing his wife and Alex couldn't contain his snort of laughter

When he glanced up from his coffee and finally noticed Alex sitting across the table from him, a grin spread across the man's face. The smile faded as the man met Alex's stare and Alex's eyes widened in surprise. Even though he hadn't seen anyone like him in almost twenty years, he recognized that face anywhere. It was the same face he saw every day whenever he looked in a mirror. It was the same face that haunted his thoughts every night he lay awake in bed. His heart dropped to the pit of his stomach as he remembered what it had become over the past three months.

He knew that he had spent most of the last four years believing the stranger in front of him was someone important. Someone to whom he owed his very existence. However, the more he thought about it, the more that theory seemed ridiculous to him. If someone so important had cared about him as much as he believed, why would they have waited six long years to contact him again? Why would they wait five months to see if he wanted anything more than friendship and kindness from him? There was no way that they cared about him like he cared about them; the idea of them caring about him even a fraction of as much as Alex apparently loved them filled him with an overwhelming amount of warmth and happiness. No matter what they might be willing to