I hadn’t meant to walk by the exhibits at the museum that day. It's not like I needed any reminders of the past. I was trying to get over to the event hall, because I’d heard that the gala was going to be historic. Okay, maybe the news channels were exaggerating a little. But no one will just believe you’re an immortal anymore. You need proof, something to talk about in a hundred years and say, “I was there.” I always miss the important stuff, so at this point, I was reaching for whatever I could get.

I was speed-walking down the wide, brightly lit hallway trying to figure out which couples I wanted to trail at the gala for maximum gossip potential and ignoring the stares I was getting for my jewel-encrusted formal dress, when I smacked directly into a young man who’d just cut across my path. “Hey!” I cried as I stumbled backwards, flinging my arms out as I desperately tried to regain my balance, my ankles screaming in my high-heels. 

“Ah! I’m so sorry! Sorry!” He caught me by the arm and helped me get my footing. His hair was messy and his glasses had been knocked askew. “Are you all right?” 

I nodded, out of breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Thank you. Where-?” I looked behind me. My purse had slipped off my shoulder.

“Oh,” he said, quickly picking it up and reaching to hand it back to me. “Here. Sorry about that, Miss…?”

“Nevers.” I said. “Bella Nevers. Thank you.” I started to take the bag back, but froze. On his wrist was an old black watch with a golden cogwheel on its face and hands in the shape of miniscule wrenches. “That watch.” I rasped, my throat suddenly dry. “Where did you get it?”

He paused, startled. “This?” he asked, glancing towards it. “It’s an old family heirloom. Why?”

“I- I’ve seen it before,” I stammered. “What’s your name?” I felt sick, a suspicion growing inside me and clenching my stomach tight.

He still looked confused. “Uh, Henry?” he said. “Williams?”

I felt like I’d been slapped. I let go of his wrist absently, feeling like I might pass out. I mumbled something about having to go.

“Wait!” he called out behind me, running to catch up. “You know Williams is a really common name, right? Anyway, where are you going? The gala’s that way, if that’s where you were headed…” He nodded back in the other direction. I hadn’t noticed that I’d been walking back towards the exit. “Wait, actually, why were you going that way? You were supposed to go in through the event entrance if you had an invitation. How were you planning to get in?”

“I.. uh…,” I muttered absently, walking on and pushing through the doors into the brisk night air.

Henry followed. “You didn’t have a plan, did you? Look, who are you? And how do you know me?”

My anger flared up and I whipped around to face him. “It’s none of your business!”

He narrowed his eyes. “Actually, I think it is. Because if I had to guess,” he started, holding up his wrist to show me the antique watch, “you have something to do with this.”

I couldn’t think straight. I sat down heavily on one of the cold metal memorial benches outside the massive building. “Look on the back,” I said miserably. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything more.

Henry stood there for a moment looking at me. Then he slipped off the watch and flipped it over to look at the back metal panel. “I’ve looked at it before. It’s just a signature. The person who made it,” he said, holding it up to the streetlight. Suddenly he stopped and brought it closer to his face, looking at it closely. “Wait…”

“Not the person who made it,” I said quietly, not looking up. “But the person who had it made, yes.”

Henry took a deep breath. “Bella Nevers.” he repeated, fastening the watch back onto his wrist.

“Yes.”

“How?”

I sighed. “It was your grandmother’s, wasn’t it?” It wasn’t really a question.

Henry paced around the tree next to me. “What was her name?” he asked, not looking at me.

“Cali,” I said. “Caroline.”

Henry didn’t say anything for a few minutes. I sat silently, waiting. Then he turned towards me. “I never knew her,” he said. “But my mother used to tell stories about her. She said she’d had a friend she talked about all the time. Rosabel.”

I started at the mention of my full name. “She’s the only one who called me that.”

“Did she know?”

“Did she know what?”

“This. That you… that you’re still here, the same.”

I sighed. “She’s the only one who knew.”

He nodded. “So what happened? I mean, why did you disappear?”

I swallowed hard, biting back another spiteful retort about this having nothing to do with him. I knew I could say that as much as I wanted, but he had a right to know. I leaned my head back, staring up at the stars through the cracked branches of the tree and remembering the times when I would do nothing else for years and years, just watching the sky and the stars wheel around above me from some unexplored hill. It was so simple back then. But nothing can stay the same for long. 

“Bella?” Henry’s voice pulled me back to the present and I saw him looking down at me, concerned. “Are you okay?”

I sighed. He sat down next to me as I started. “When I met Cali… I’d given up a long time ago trying to find someone, anyone, who’d understand. But there was something about her. When I told her everything, she believed me. I don’t know what it was. Why she did.”

Henry nodded, his breath making frozen clouds in the air. “My mom said she was like that,” he said quietly. “She’d do anything-”

“-for anyone.” I finished. “I know.” I took a shaky breath. “She was my best friend. Well, my only friend really. But you know what I mean.”

Henry dropped his eyes, shuffling his feet over the frosty ground, and I suddenly realized that he didn’t. As he looked back up, avoiding my gaze, I could tell by the pain in his eyes that this was hard for him too. Henry Williams had never gotten to meet Caroline. He had never gotten to meet her, because of me.

“You still haven’t told me what happened,” he said tightly.

I swallowed hard. “It’s my fault,” I blurted.

He looked at me, confused. “What is?”

“That she’s gone!” I snapped, standing up. “It’s because of me!”

Henry got to his feet, looking absolutely mystified. “Bella, how is it your fault? No one did anything to her. She died because-”

“Because I wasn’t there! I could have done something, I just-” I stopped, not sure what I was going to say.

“Bella, there was nothing you could do! She got sick, there was nothing anyone could do!”

“You don’t understand!” I exclaimed. “I left her. I Wasn’t. There.” 

“But even if you had been,” Henry started. “What would you have done? Bella, I know I don’t know all the details, but whatever happened between you two, her death wasn’t your fault!”

I turned around, frustratedly blinking back tears. Part of me knew he was right. I knew I couldn’t change the past. I knew I had to move on. But it was my fault. My fault Cali was gone. Except it wasn’t, not really. But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that there was nothing I could have done. It didn't matter because I left her, and I ran and I left her because I was too afraid to look at her and see death looking back at me. Because even that first little while, a long time really, when we could have pretended everything was fine, I was too much of a self-centered coward to stay. 

Henry must have seen my face because he came up next to me and tried again. “Bella,” he started quietly. “Why are you blaming yourself?”

I glanced back at him, taking a shaky breath to try to regain my composure, but it caught in my throat and I sobbed. “Because she never gave up on me,” I choked. “Never. But the second something went wrong, I gave up on her! I didn’t leave before that, I left because of that! I left because in all my thousands of years, there’s one thing I have never had to deal with, because I have done everything I possibly could to make sure I never would! I gave up trying to get close to anyone because I realized that would ever lead to one thing! Cali pulled me out of that, and she showed me why. She showed me why you people can still stand to care about each other when you know it’s going to end! I left because when that finally happened I wasn’t ready! She tried to show me, and I thought I understood, but I guess I didn’t, because I decided I would rather break it off myself than let death end it. There was one thing Cali wanted me to understand, and I failed!” I stopped shouting. The chilly breeze carried away the echoes of my words as I tried to catch my breath. Henry didn’t look at me, the silence growing between us.

“Rosabel…” Henry started after a moment.

“Don’t call me that!”

“Bella,” he said slowly. “You’re right. You’re right that Cali never gave up on anyone. And the thing is…” he put his hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eye. “She still wouldn’t. No matter why you left. You made a mistake, yeah. But if you want to be more human, that’s part of it. I don’t know anything really, about what you are. I don’t know how much you know yourself. But just because you’ve been around…forever…doesn’t mean you have to be perfect. You want to know how we manage to care about any of this? It’s because even though we know that it’s never going to be perfect and that it isn’t going to last forever, there’s always things, little sparks, that are going to make it worth it. You know how Caroline loved to make things?”

I nodded, looking up at him. “That’s why I had the watch made like that. The wrenches.”

“Yeah. It was her favorite thing. And she never stopped. Even when she got sick, and when she was raising my mom, she was always tinkering. She was doing what she loved, until the end. So no, she never gave up. Not on anything or anyone. Not even you. And you know what?” Henry asked. “Neither am I.”

I shook my head carefully. I didn’t know what to say.

Henry walked a few steps, then turned to look back at me. “Come on,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

* * *

We hadn’t talked much on the bus ride, but as Henry pushed open the door to the warmly lit house, he cast a mischievous grin over his shoulder. Then, without another word, he stepped inside, holding the door open for me to follow. I stepped in tentatively and shuffled my feet on the doormat, still chilled from the cold night. I could hear voices and glasses clinking from the bright kitchen. A second later, a young woman with short, curly hair leaned around the door. She held a drink, but she wore a heavy apron over her clothes and she was splattered with paint or oil or something.

“Henry! Come on!” she called. She paused when she saw me and raised an eyebrow at my sparkling party dress. “Bring a friend?”

Henry laughed. “Yep. Bella, this is Liz. Liz, Bella.” Liz gave me an odd look, before shrugging and holding out a cup of orange juice. Henry walked into the room with me trailing behind and accepted the glass with a bemused look. 

“Because Michael’s still here,” Liz explained with a smile, gesturing to a younger boy who sat working intently on a laptop, his cup of juice beside him and his mouth full of a bite of cupcake. Behind him, another young man in jeans and a sweatshirt was packing up some boxes of pizza. He stopped and took out a piece, passing it to Henry.

“Just in time,” he smirked. “We almost ate all of this.” He looked over at me. “Hey. Pizza?”

“Oh,” I said, startled, shifting uncomfortably. “No, thank you though.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself. Oh, Henry, thought you might want to know, we got the new prototype done. It works, at least as of currently.”

Henry looked up excitedly. “That’s great! Thanks guys! And thanks, for the pizza, Adam.”

“Did you find what you needed at the museum?” Michael mumbled, his mouth still full.

“Yep!” Henry said cheerfully. “Pictures of some really old designs. I’ll get them sent to you guys, just for comparison. Oh yeah, everyone, this is Bella.”

“It’s nice to meet you all,” I said carefully. I felt out of place in their tight-knit group, trying to figure out why Henry had brought me here. “So… what are you doing?”

“Oh, just reinventing the wheel,” Henry said lightly.

I tried for a smile, not quite able to tell if he was joking. “Yeah, I hate to break it to you, that’s been tried before.” I didn’t add that I could think of at least 117 different inventors off the top of my head who’d tried it and never amounted to anything.

Liz laughed. “Yeah. No, we’re really just finding better ways to do things. Right now it’s nothing big. A more energy efficient engine.”

“Nothing big,” mimicked Adam. “That ‘nothing big’ and its ‘mechanical quirks’ has just taken another 4 hours off my life. But it’s fun.”

I smiled tightly. I still didn’t see how they could joke about things like that. Without thinking, I asked, “Is it worth it to you?”

Henry looked at me strangely. “What do you mean?”

I glanced at them all quickly. “I mean, you’re dedicating your lives to this. But you have no guarantee of… anything really.”

Liz stood quietly for a moment, tapping her finger on her cup of orange juice. Then she set it down on the counter with a quiet clink. “I think you’re looking at it a bit backwards,” she said, brushing a curl of hair behind her ear. “Sure, we don’t have any guarantees. But we have a chance. To make a difference. What we do… It may not matter.” She shrugged. “But it might. And that’s something.” I examined her carefully, and I could tell she meant it. “Look at it this way. This project? May take off, may not. But even if it doesn’t, we still have this.” She nodded towards the others. “We can say we tried. And if we never make a difference to anyone else… Well, we’ve made a difference to each other.”

Adam stood up from leaning against the counter and smirked. “Not that you have any doubt in our abilities, Liz.”

Liz grinned. “I just meant-” she protested.

“Yeah, yeah. Well, someone here has got to have a shred of confidence, so I’ll do it for all of you. This is going to be our big break.” Adam laughed. “But really, it is progress,” he said proudly. 

I smiled, a real smile this time. Something told me the difference they made would not be stopping at each other. “You guys are going to take over the world someday.”

“Yup.” Michael quipped, not looking up from his laptop. “I’ve got a file folder for world domination plans.”

Adam snickered. “I call Antarctica.”

“Why?” asked Liz, aghast. “There’s nothing there!”

“Exactly,” Adam crowed. “Including no people. So I won’t have-” he said, pointing at each of the group, “-to interact with you bozos.”

Liz smacked him playfully and the group laughed. As they chatted, I zoned out, lost in thought. I remembered what Henry had said, and I finally knew what he was trying to show me. That these people were what made it all worth it for him, and for each other. I knew he was right, that I needed to find something like that. Because really, I didn’t need the whole world to believe me. I just needed someone, or a few people. People like Cali. People who could show me what it meant to be human, and what it meant to make a difference. But I also knew that, as I listened to the group’s easy banter, I would never really fit here. People like Cali? They were one in a million. I would find my spark, and I would find where I belonged, but I would need some time. Not too much time though.

Later, as Henry walked me outside, we both just stood there for a moment looking up at the stars, and I think he knew. A gentle snow had started, the flakes settling on our hair and our faces. I smiled at him once, and then I turned and started to walk away.

“Rosabel.” Henry’s voice stopped me, and I turned to face him. “Thank you,” he said, “for telling me. For letting me in. And listen… I know you probably need some time. But… Well, we’ll be here. If you’re ever around. You know.”

I lowered my gaze. “Thanks. No, really, Henry, thank you. For everything. I’m… sure I’ll be around. Someday.”

He laughed gently. “Right. But Bella? Whether it’s us or not… This? Cutting yourself off like that? I need you to promise me…”

I nodded. He hadn’t finished, but I knew what he meant. “I promise,” I said. “Never again.”