Layla's POV
For a moment, I couldn’t move. The man had come close enough to me that I could see the lines in his face. Deep, sunshaped creases that told stories of decades spent under the sun. His eyes looked lightly gray with striking kindness yet there was something heavy about it that I couldn't tell.
He stared at me like he saw a ghost. They both did. And then, he said something finally.
"Ava..."
That name.
The name that froze the air around me.
The name I've heard only twice in almost one decade. It still sounded like the last time I heard it— Like an echo from a dream I didn't remember having.
My heart stopped for a moment.
I swallowed hard. Then I managed to speak.
"And you are...? I blinked.
The man blinked too like he just jerked up from a trance.
"Oh pardon me, child.
