I told him.
Not with a preamble or a careful framing or the strategic construction of a narrative designed to land well. I told him the way you told the truth to someone who had already seen it and was simply waiting for you to find the words for it, which was directly and without ornament and with the particular vulnerability of a person removing the last layer of protection from something they had been keeping safe for a very long time.
I told him that I was not from this world.
