Evermore

My life is a constant, deafening roar of other people's thoughts and feelings, a chaotic symphony of swirling, colored auras I can't turn off. Ever since the car accident that took my family, I've been a freak. I hide beneath the deep hood of a sweatshirt, drowning the noise with music so loud it's almost painful, trying to forget the one memory that won't fade: the moment I died. My only anchors in this overwhelming world are my two best friends, Haven and Miles, and the silent, shimmering visitations from my little sister, Riley, who wanders in from the afterlife to critique my wardrobe and remind me of the girl I used to be. I avoid touch at all costs, for a single brush of skin can flood me with a stranger's entire life story, a burden too heavy to carry on top of my own.

Then he arrives. Damen Auguste. He slides into the seat next to mine in English class, and for the first time in months, there is silence. He is a void, a blank space in my psychic landscape. No colors swirl around his lean frame, no thoughts whisper from his mind. He is just a boy - an impossibly beautiful boy with dark, knowing eyes - and his presence is a relief so profound it's terrifying. I'm drawn to him, to the quiet he offers, but he is an enigma. He moves with an unnatural speed, produces perfect red tulips from thin air, and looks at me with an intensity that feels ancient, as though he's been waiting for me.

My feelings for him become a tangled mess of desire and suspicion. Haven, my goth-in-training friend, immediately calls “dibs,” creating a rift between us when Damen's attention turns to me. One moment, he is pulling white rosebuds from the ear of the most popular girl in school; the next, he is gazing at me as if I'm the only person in the universe. At a Halloween party, we arrive dressed by a strange coincidence as the famous lovers Marie Antoinette and Count Fersen. In the cool night air, he finally kisses me, and the world falls away - only for the moment to be shattered by the arrival of a stunning redhead named Drina, who is also dressed as my historical counterpart and clearly shares a deep, unspoken history with Damen.

My unease hardens into fear. With Riley's ghostly help, I investigate, discovering he lives in a vast, completely unfurnished house, save for one locked room. Breaking in, I find a space that feels like a crypt, filled with portraits of Damen painted by Picasso and Van Gogh, and first-edition books signed to him by Shakespeare and Brontë. Before I can process the impossibility of it all, I stumble upon a horrific scene: Damen, his face smeared with blood, kneeling over Haven's limp and bleeding body. The shock is so great that everything goes black, and when I wake, the memory is gone, leaving only a residue of dread.

Drina's influence over Haven grows, twisting my friend into a pale imitation of the fiery redhead, marked by a strange, infected tattoo of a snake eating its tail. Another of Haven's new friends disappears, her body found days later. My world unravels, and I retreat into a haze, trying to numb the psychic noise and the gnawing certainty that Damen is something monstrous. The truth finally comes on the winter solstice, when Drina lures me deep into a foggy canyon. There, she reveals everything. She and Damen are immortals. And for six hundred years, in lifetime after lifetime, she has hunted me down and killed me to keep Damen for herself. The final, devastating blow comes when she confesses with a triumphant smile: she caused the car accident that killed my family.

She toys with me, her strength far superior to mine, breaking my body as she has done countless times before. But as I lie broken on the cold ground, I stop focusing on the pain and instead summon the last perfect memory I have of my family, not with guilt, but with pure, unconditional love. A power surges through me, warm and golden, knitting my bones and healing my flesh. I am whole again. As Drina stares in shock, Damen appears, but the final blow is mine to deliver. Fueled by love, not revenge, I strike her in the one place she is vulnerable - her loveless heart - and she dissolves into nothing.

In the quiet aftermath, Damen leads me to a place between worlds he calls Summerland, a radiant meadow where thoughts create reality. He explains our shared past, how he has found and lost me through my many reincarnations, and how, after the accident, he used an ancient elixir to make me immortal, unable to bear losing me again. He tells me I have a choice: to embrace this eternal life with him or to walk away. The power, he insists, has always been mine.

Before I can choose my future, I must make peace with my past. I find Riley and, in the most painful act of love, I tell her it's time to go. I give her my blessing to cross the bridge and finally join our parents, releasing her from the limbo where she's been waiting for me. I am alone, but for the first time, I feel a sense of peace. My scar, the physical reminder of my guilt, has vanished.

Alone in my room, I finally understand the meaning of the flowers Damen gave me. White rosebuds for a heart ignorant of love; red tulips for a declaration of undying love. He was waiting for me to choose. I close my eyes, knowing he can hear me wherever he is, and I speak the words I've held back for so long. “I love you,” I whisper, ready to begin our eternity, together.