Away

Confusion

I stared at the papers on the ground, 'Didn't Daniel leave the notes in the drawer?', I asked myself in my mind. It looked as though someone had started to order them by their page numbers, but that couldn't be right. I mean, Who would've done this, the only other person who would've known about these would've been Daniel, but he's, he's- I stopped myself, he's going to come back.

Something made a shuffling noise underneath the bed, and I almost jumped backwards if it wasn't for the fact that I looked at it first.

It's him! It's Daniel! He's back, like I said he would be. But something was wrong about this Daniel, he didn't look at me like I was a friend, nor as an enemy, he looked at me with fear, and my Daniel wouldn't look at me with fear, right? I mentally shook the thought away, and said, "Daniel?"

His face changed from fear to confusion with fear still mixed in, "W-what?", he stuttered.

"Daniel," I restated, "isn't that you? Aren't you Daniel."

"I-", the stranger under the bed opened their mouth to respond, but didn't say anything. My heart fell as my happiness and hope began to fade. This wasn't Daniel, or at least not the Daniel I knew. I let out a long sigh, and closed my eyes.

"I'm Aaron."

My eyes flicked open, revealing that he had crawled from under the bed, and was now kneeling next to me. I almost fell backwards in surprise.

"Sorry," he said, holding my shoulder to help me regain my balance. He had a soft, yet attentive look.

"It's ok," I said, looking down to hide my embarrassment, "I'm Jamey."