The day finally arrived when Aaron was coming for dinner, and the atmosphere in our flat was thick with nervous energy. My mother spent hours in the kitchen, the scent of roasted rosemary and expensive wine filling every corner of the hallway. I dressed in my best clothes, my hands trembling as I set the table with the silverware we only used for Christmas. Every time a car drove past our window, my heart skipped a beat, a mixture of excitement and strange dread. When the doorbell finally rang, the sound was like a gunshot in the silent room, sharp and demanding and final. My mother rushed to the door, her face lit up with a joy I hadn’t seen in over a decade of living. “Oh my God, you’re here!” she shouted, her voice echoing with a genuine, raw emotion that made me smile for a second. I stood up from the sofa, smoothing my dress and preparing my best “nice to meet you” smile for the guest. But as the door swung wide open, the world seemed to tilt on its axis and the floor vanished beneath me. The man standing there wasn’t a stranger; he was a face I had seen every day in my nightmares. The sunlight from the hallway hit his face, revealing a familiar scar across his left eyebrow that I knew by touch.
