"So… you two talk now?"
The question had been dropped into the quiet room with an agonizing, practiced casualness. It was too casual. Arthur had frozen instantly, his spoon hovering inches above his plate as his heart hammered a frantic, desperate rhythm against his ribs, as if trying to break free from his chest entirely.
When he had been left alone in the living room with Aunt Kelly earlier that evening, the sheer weight of his own guilt had rendered him nearly mute. He had been so hopelessly nervous he could barely string a coherent sentence together. Every innocent, mundane question she asked about his day felt like an interrogation; it made him strangely paranoid, deeply convinced that her sharp, maternal eyes could see straight through his skin, mapping the chaotic, breathless jumble of thoughts he had spent the last several hours trying to desperately organize.
