Chapter 11 The Cost of Staying
I tell myself I am not afraid.
I say it the way people say things they need to survive believing. Quietly. Repeated. Almost gently, as if fear might not hear me if I don't raise my voice.
"I'm fine," I tell Alaric, and I hear the lie even as it leaves my mouth.
We are sitting across from each other at the small wooden table in his apartment. The lamp between us gives off a low, amber glow, soft enough to blur the edges of the room. The shelves behind him are still crowded with books that seem too old for their bindings, spines cracked, titles worn thin. He looks like he belongs among them still, careful, carrying time in his posture.
"You're not," he says.
He doesn't accuse. He never does. His voice is steady, calm in the way that makes me feel seen rather than cornered.
I press my fingers together in my lap. My nails are short. I cut them when I'm anxious, when I need something small and controllable to fix.
"I didn't say I was," I answered.
Alaric watches me for a long moment. His eyes, too knowing, too patient, don't move away. He waits the way people do when they've waited longer than anyone should have to.
"You don't have to explain yourself," he says. "But you shouldn't pretend, either."
I let out a breath that feels like it's been trapped in my chest all evening.
"I don't know how to do this," I admit.
His brow creases slightly. "Do what?"
"Think about tomorrow," I say. "Without it swallowing everything else."
Silence stretches between us, not heavy but full. It's the kind of silence that asks for honesty.
"You're thinking about staying," Alaric says quietly.
I flinch, just a little.
"I didn't say that."
"You don't have to," he replies.
I look down at the table. There's a scratch in the wood near my wrist, shallow and uneven, like someone tried to fix it and failed. I trace it with my fingertip.
"If I stay," I say slowly, "I don't just stay with you. I stay with… all of it."
He nods once. "Yes."
"That's not fair," I whisper. "To ask that of anyone."
"I'm not asking," he says quickly.
I lift my head. "You don't have to ask for it to still be there."
His jaw tightens. For a moment, he looks older than I've ever seen him tired in a way that has nothing to do with sleep.
"I know," he says. "That's why I've never said it out loud."
The lamp hums softly. Somewhere outside, a car passes, the sound distant and fleeting. The world keeps moving. It always does.
"I keep thinking about Isolde," I say.
Alaric doesn't react right away. When he does, it's a subtle slow inhale, a pause before he answers.
"That's understandable."
"I didn't understand her before," I continued. "Not really. I thought… I don't know. That it was about fear. Or escape."
"And now?" he asks.
I swallow. "Now I think it was about time."
His gaze sharpens, not defensive, but attentive.
"Say more," he says.
I lean back in my chair, the wood pressing against my spine.
"I've always been aware of time," I tell him. "I work with it. Study it. Preserve it. But it was always abstract. Dates. Stories. Lives are already finished."
I gesture between us. "This isn't abstract."
"No," he agrees softly.
"If I stay," I say again, "I don't just choose you. I choose to watch everything else go."
He doesn't interrupt. He never interrupts when I'm like this.
"My parents," I say. "My friends. Even the places I love. They'll change. Fade. End. And I'll still be… here."
Alaric's voice is low when he speaks. "You don't know that."
I laugh, sharp and humorless. "I do. You're proof."
He doesn't argue.
"That's the cost," I say. "Not staying. But staying long enough."
I expect him to pull away. To retreat into the careful distance he's kept for centuries. Instead, he reaches across the table, slow enough that I could stop him if I wanted to.
I don't.
His hand rests near mine, not touching. Waiting.
"You're allowed to be afraid," he says.
"I know."
"You're allowed to leave," he adds.
That hurts more than anything else he could have said.
I close my eyes.
"I don't want to," I admit.
When I open them again, he's watching me like I've given him something fragile.
"Then don't decide tonight," he says.
I shake my head. "It doesn't work like that. The question doesn't stop just because I'm tired."
He exhales slowly. "I wish I could make it easier."
"I wouldn't trust it if you did," I reply.
That earns a small smile, fleeting but real.
Later, when I lie awake in the spare room he insists on calling mine, the silence feels different.
The bed smells faintly of linen and old paper. The ceiling above me is unfamiliar, its cracks forming shapes I don't recognize yet. I stare at them anyway.
My mind refuses to rest.
I think about the letters. The way Isolde wrote as if someone might find her words centuries later. The way she chose disappearance over permanence.
"I chose this," she had written.
I wonder if she knew how long the echo of that choice would last.
I turn onto my side, pulling the blanket closer. The air is cool against my face. Somewhere in the apartment, I hear Alaric moving quiet footsteps, a chair shifting, the soft sound of a book closing.
I imagine him alone, the way he has been alone for so long.
"I don't want to leave," I whisper into the dark.
Sleep comes slowly, like a negotiation.
When it finally takes me, it doesn't bring rest.
I dream of years unfolding without effort. Of faces I recognize growing older while mine stays the same. I dream of standing at graves with dates that stretch further and further away from me. I dream of holding hands that loosen, voices that fade, rooms that empty.
I dream of staying.
I dream of time moving on without me.
I dream of outliving everyone.