His steps are long and sure, even in his heavy boots. The boots she knows and loves, somehow, and how can you love someone else’s shoes, she wonders, as she watches him ascend. When she is close, he hears her and stops, one floor below. Holds her still in his eyes, and then shrugs, like the eighteen-year-old version of himself. Wolf teeth. Unshifting gaze. Sorry, he says to her. What for? For taking so long, he says.
