For two weeks, I became a ghost in my own life.
I moved through my classes with mechanical precision, attending lectures I couldn't remember, taking notes, I never reviewed. I sat across from Apple in the student union while she chattered about her latest romantic adventures, nodding at appropriate intervals, offering monosyllabic responses that she accepted with growing concern. I went through the motions of breathing, of eating, of existing—but the animating force behind those motions had withdrawn to some deep, inaccessible place, leaving only the hollow shell behind.
The world faded to a monochrome palette. The vibrant colours I had begun to see again after glimpsing him in the coffee shop—the rich golds of autumn leaves, the deep blues of twilight skies, the warm amber of streetlights reflecting off wet pavement—all bleached away to shades of grey. Even the memories that usually sustained me, the jewel-box moments I kept locked in my heart for times like these, seemed dim and distant, as if viewed through fogged glass.
Apple noticed, of course. Apple noticed everything.
"G," she said one afternoon, sliding into the seat across from me in the library. She had tracked me to my usual corner, the one by the window where the light fell just right and no one ever came. Her face, usually so bright with mischief and gossip, was drawn with genuine concern. "You need to talk to me. This isn't 'too much studying.' This isn't 'not enough sleep.' This is something else, and I'm not leaving until you tell me what is going on."
I looked at her—at this fierce, loyal creature who had adopted me as a friend without knowing anything about who I really am—and felt the first crack in the numbness that had wrapped itself around me like a shroud.
"It's nothing," I started, the automatic response rising to my lips.
"Don't," she cut me off, her voice sharp. "Don't you dare 'nothing' me. I've known you for three years, G. I've seen you handle finals, field impossible questions from our lecturers, and navigate that whole disaster with the philosophy department funding. Through all of it, you were as calm as the deepest dark ocean like really dark. But now? What is this? I've never seen you like this. You look like someone who's watching the world from very far away—like it's burning down and you're just... observing. No, that's too dramatic. What's the right word? Like someone killed your favourite stuffed animal. Or your pet. Right! Your favourite pet! And you can't do anything about it." She reached across the table and took my hand—a gesture so simple, so human, that it nearly broke me. "Whatever it is, you can tell me. I won't judge. I won't even give advice if you don't want it. I'll just listen."
The offer hung between us, pure and generous, and for a moment I was tempted. Oh, how I was tempted. To tell someone. To lay down the burden of centuries, just for an hour, and let another soul share the weight. To say the words aloud: I am immortal. I have loved the same man for longer than your entire civilization has existed. He is alive in this city right now, and he told me to stay away.
But I couldn't. The words wouldn't come. They were too big, too strange, too impossible for this ordinary world of library fines and coffee dates and undergraduate anxieties.
"It's a man," I said instead, and the lie was so close to the truth that it almost felt honest.
Apple's expression shifted instantly from concern to avid interest. "A man? G, you've never—who? When? Tell me everything."
I managed a weak smile. "There's not much to tell. I met someone. I thought... I thought there might be something there. But he made it clear he's not interested."
"Oh, honey." Apple squeezed my hand. "His loss. Seriously. His catastrophic, universe-level loss. Whoever he is, he's an idiot of the highest order."
A laugh escaped me—small and rusty, but real. "You don't even know him."
"Don't need to. Anyone who can't see how amazing you are doesn't deserve to have you in their life." She paused, her eyes narrowing with sudden suspicion. "Wait. This wouldn't happen to be related to Mr. Divine from the coffee shop, would it? The one with the face and a mean ass and body that could launched a thousand ships? Because I saw the way you looked at him, G. And I saw the way he looked at you before he ran."
The accuracy of her observation was a knife in my chest. "It's complicated."
"Complicated how?"
"He's... not who I thought he was."
Apple studied me for a long moment, her sharp mind clearly turning over possibilities. Then she did something unexpected. She let it go.
"Okay," she said simply. "Complicated. I can accept complicated. But here's the thing, G—you're my best friend, and I'm not going to watch you fade away over some guy who's not smart enough to see what's in front of him. So, here's what's going to happen. You're going to come to dinner at my place tonight. I'm going to make my famous pasta—the one with the cream sauce that you pretend to hate but secretly love. We're going to drink way too much wine—secretly, like ninjas, since you know the rules where I live, but who cares? And we're going to watch terrible movies and not talk about complicated men at all. Deal?"
The tears that had been threatening for days finally spilled over. "Deal," I whispered.
That night, surrounded by Apple's chaos—the mismatched furniture, the stacks of fashion magazines, the cat who shed on everything—I felt something I hadn't felt in weeks. Warmth. Connection. The simple, profound comfort of being seen and accepted without condition.
Apple didn't ask any more questions. She just fed me pasta and filled my glass and made me laugh at her commentary on the ridiculous romantic comedies she insisted we watch—50 First Dates being her favourite target for mockery despite the fact that she'd seen it at least a dozen times. And somewhere in the middle of a particularly terrible scene involving a walrus named Jovko, the numbness that had encased me began to crack.
Not from the outside—not from Kaelen's rejection or the hopelessness of my situation. From within. From the quiet, stubborn resilience that had kept me going across centuries. From the part of me that refused to believe that this was the end of the story.