He’d also had his hair cut. It was trimmed at the sides, not a crew cut or anything, but a lot shorter, messy and long-ish on top but not as long as it used to be. It still fell over his forehead, but not like before.

He had a very nice jaw.

He even had attractive ears.

And last, he did not look like him. Even if he still did.

No, he now looked like a boy I once knew. A boy grown up.

Carson Steele.

His eyes fell on me and his lips moved as he kept coming toward me.

“Hey, Butterfly. You ready for today?”

I didn’t answer.

I was busy staring.

This couldn’t be true.

I kept staring wondering how I could miss this. Wondering how this could be real.

But I hadn’t missed it. The very first time he got close on the shoulder of I-25, I knew I knew him. And later that first meeting, I’d felt the same way. And again and again, repeatedly.

I knew that I knew.

But I couldn’t put my finger on it because he’d changed. He had the years since we’d last seen each other written on his face, in every inch of his frame.

But it was more. The hair. The beard. The bulk on his body. The way he held himself. The way he dressed. The company he kept.

Carson Steele had been a loner.

Joker had a band of brothers. A huge family of good, kind people.

Suddenly, it occurred to me with blinding clarity that Aaron had sensed the same. That was why he’d studied Joker so closely. He’d even asked him if he knew him!

And last, Joker knew me. He’d known who I was the second he approached me on I-25. He’d gone completely still, staring at me.

He knew me.

Then.

And since.

And he didn’t say anything. I told him my name, and he didn’t say he knew me and I knew him.

He didn’t say anything.

Why didn’t he say anything?

He’d even pretended he’d forgotten my name!

“Carrie?” he called when he stopped close.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I whispered, looking deep into his eyes.

They hadn’t been blunt steel back then. He was too young to have had time to build up that guard. Every girl in school could read the tortured brooding of the mysterious outsider who was Carson Steele right from his eyes. Every girl had wanted to soothe his savaged soul.

Every girl in school.

Including me.

It was then I knew. I knew in the single most humiliating moment in my life why he’d done what he’d done.