#so it explains

She doesn't notice at first.

Doesn't notice the little things -- the way weeks and sometimes months can pass before they see one another again and he never changes; the way he never wants any sort of fanfare on his birthday; the way his lips twitch when she mentions one night when she's had too much to drink that she's going to die alone, old and grey. Doesn't notice the way his voice sounds a little different when he says 'I'm a whole lot older than you, you know' and 'take it from someone who's been around a long, long time,' just laughs it off and shoves him in the shoulder and rolls her eyes. Doesn't notice the way his eyes drop when she asks about where he came from or what he's doing there, because some people don't like to talk about their family, right?

                                                            (she certainly doesn't)

She doesn't notice

                                           that his face looks the same when she's

                                           twenty-three, then twenty-six, then thirty,

                                           then thirty-three

until it's too late.

And she feels stupid because she'd thought -- she'd talked herself into believing that he just aged well, that it wasn't fair that he still looked the way he did, that he was one of those types, the man who looks like he stepped right off a Hollywood set or maybe right out of time.

So she looks at him long and hard when they're out one day, sitting together on a bench in the park, and he looks back.

"Caleb

                          what exactly

                                                            can you do?"