I was born in 1908, but I stopped aging in 1937. For over a century, I’ve lived in the shadows—changing names, burning photographs, loving in silence. I told myself it was safer this way. Until Ellis.

He’s kind in a way that unravels me. Not because he’s handsome—though he is—but because he looks at me like I’m real, like I belong. Last night, we went to his parents’ anniversary dinner. I thought I could handle it. Then his father, William, looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, ‘Adaline?’

I lied. I said she was my mother. But he knew. He saw the scar on my hand, the one from our hike in 1963. Afterward, I left a note for Ellis and drove away. I was going to disappear again.

But then—the crash. The cold. The silence.

Now I’m in a hospital bed, and Ellis is holding my hand. He doesn’t know the truth yet. But he will. And I have to decide: do I run once more, or do I finally let someone in?