He turns on his back and stares at the ceiling, engaging in a moment of deep, thoughtful silence, before he sits up, swings his legs over the side, and fights to untangle the sheet from his knee.

“Damen—” I start, unsure of what follows, but it’s not like it matters, he’s quick to fill in the blanks.

“I was hoping we could spend our winter break doing other things.” He moves toward the window where he stops, looks at me.

“What kind of things?” I narrow my gaze, wondering what other things there could possibly be.

“Well, for starters, don’t you think it’s time we settled this whole thing with Sabine?”

I grab the pillow from his side, and plop it right over my face. A move I recognize as being incredibly ineffective, not to mention immature, but at the moment, I don’t care. I mean, if I don’t even want to think about Sabine, then I think it’s safe to say that I really don’t want to talk about Sabine either. But there he is, attempting to chat about my number-one, off-limits, completely taboo—or at least for the moment anyway—subject.

“Ever…” He plucks at the pillow, but I just grip it tighter. “You can’t leave it like this. It’s not right. You have to go back there eventually.”

He tugs one more time before sighing and retreating to his place by the window.

“You kicking me out?” I lower the pillow to my belly, turn on my side, and wrap my arms around it, as though it’ll shield me from whatever comes next.

“No!” He’s quick to shake his head. Fingers raking through his tangle of hair, making sense of it, pushing it back into place. Gazing at me with a look of outright astonishment when he says, “Why would I do that?” His hand returns to his side, settles by his leg. “I love going to bed with you, just as much as I love waking up with you. I thought you knew that?”

“Are you sure?” I venture, reading the dismay in his gaze. “I mean, it’s not too frustrating? You know, the two of us sleeping with each other, without being able to really and truly sleep with each other?” I press my lips together, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks.

“The only thing I find frustrating is you trying to hide under a pillow in order to avoid talking about Sabine.”

I close my eyes, allowing my fingers to mindlessly pick at the pillowcase seam, aware of my mood shifting, changing, slipping to the opposite side of his, and hoping I can stop it before it goes too far, divides us too much.

“There’s nothing to say. She thinks I’m crazy. I think I’m not. Or at least not in the way that she thinks.” I peer at him, trying to insert a little levity, but it slides right past him. He’s taking this far too seriously. “Anyway, she’s so entirely sold on her opinion that my only real choice is to agree with it, or go away. That’s the choice she presented me with. And yeah, while I freely admit that it hurts, hurts in a way that goes pretty dang deep, there’s still this part of me that can’t help but think maybe it’s for the better. You know?”

His eyes narrow, thinking, weighing, before he folds his arms across his chest, causing his muscles to twitch and then settle. “No, I don’t know. Why don’t you explain it to me?”

“Well, it’s like you always say: I’ll have to say my good-byes eventually—sooner rather than later. I mean, according to you, that’s pretty much a given, right? So what’s the point of making peace, of insisting on hanging around for a few more months, when I’ll have to split soon anyway? You said so yourself; it won’t be long before she catches on—before everyone catches on. She’ll see that neither one of us has aged, not even a day. And since there’s no logical way to explain something like that, and since Sabine’s a person who expects nothing less than absolute black-and-white logic, well, there’s really not much more to say on the subject, is there?”

We exchange a look, and although I’ve hit all the points, including the ones that originally came from him, it’s clear he needs more.

He’s still not convinced of why I shouldn’t get out of bed, march myself over there, and try to make peace. Which means he’s either being incredibly stubborn, or I’ve failed to make my case, or both.

“It’s like, why delay the inevitable?” I swallow hard and hug the pillow again. “I mean, maybe this whole thing happened for a reason.

You know how I’ve been dreading the good-bye, and so, now that this has happened, maybe it’ll just make it easier—maybe this is just the solution I’ve been looking for all this time—maybe this is like a gift from the universe?” The words coming so quickly, I pause to catch my breath, though one look in his eyes makes it clear he’s still not riding tandem with me. So I decide to switch gears, try another approach, hoping this one might work a little better. “Tell me, Damen, tell me for reals, in all of your years, with all of your arrivals and departures, so to speak, did you never once pick a fight, or even use a fight as a reason to leave?”

“Of course I did.” He averts his gaze, fingers picking at the waistband of his black cotton briefs. “On more than one occasion, I assure you. But that doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do.”

I fall quiet, having nothing more to add. Squinting as he turns to adjust the shutters, welcoming a dull slant of light from what appears to be a very gray, sunless, mid-December day.

“Maybe you’re right.” He studies the scenery. “Maybe this will make for the cleanest break. It’s not like you can tell her the truth. It’d be like fuel to her fire. She wouldn’t accept it. And if by some miracle she did, well, then, she’d be quick to condemn it. And the worst part is, she’d be right. What I’ve done—what I’ve made you—it’s unnatural. It goes against every law of nature.” He pauses, turns back to me, a look of true regret marring his gaze. “If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that we are not living the life that was intended. Our bodies are immortal, true, but our souls clearly are not. Our lives flaunt the most fundamental laws of nature. We are the opposite of what we were meant to be.”