I tilted my head, seeing beyond the hint of his smile, his dimple, and his late-night stubble splashed across his defined jawline. I wouldn’t find what I was looking for in his words or even in his eyes. Taylor’s truth was just out of reach, like my own, so I knew where to look and how to find it. The only way to see into someone’s soul was with your own.

“You promise?” I repeated.

“Swear.”

“Are you scared of me?” I asked, only half-joking.

Taylor didn’t hesitate. “Not even a little. I know exactly what to expect from you.”

“And how is that?”

“Because I’m fairly certain that we’re the same person.”

My eyebrows shot up, unable to hide my surprise at his conclusion, and I offered a single nod. “Aliens it is.”

“You going to quit busting my balls?” he asked, crossing his arms.

I crawled back over to the chair and sat down, hooking my legs over the arm. “Probably not, but it’ll just be run-of-the-mill Falyn bitchery, and it won’t be because I’m trying to get rid of you.”

Taylor sat on his knees in front of the television, pulled on the knob to turn it on, and then twisted the dial to channel three. “You forgot the movie.”

I went to the closet and pulled it from a stack before tossing it to him. He pulled the tape out of its cover and fed it into the VCR’s front slot. Once the tape settled in, the movie began to play. For a few seconds, the picture along with the somber violins playing during the opening credits became fuzzy, and then it all cleared up just as Ripley’s spaceship appeared in the distance, a tiny speck of white among the darkness.

Taylor walked on his knees to the sofa before crawling up and stretching out.

As I returned to my chair, a tiny part of me wanted to be polite and explain why I was being so hard on him, but I squashed it down to where I kept the old me. Explanations and apologies were a waste for someone like me. Facing forward and remembering to forget were the only things I had, and under no conditions would I ever allow myself to feel—for anyone—and risk any other similar feelings to come to the surface.

Taylor reached down to the crotch of his shorts and adjusted, tugging at the navy fabric. Once he was satisfied with the location of his junk, he pulled down his T-shirt.

I rolled my eyes. He didn’t notice.

One arm was propping his head as he sat with his eyes glued on the screen.