Chap­ter III begins with Hen­ry, full of curios­i­ty and intrigue, observ­ing Addie as she demon­strates an unex­pect­ed exper­tise at the pin­ball machine dur­ing their evening out in the vibrant, bustling streets of New York City. Despite her ini­tial admis­sion of nev­er hav­ing played the game before, Addie defies expec­ta­tions by rack­ing up an impres­sive high score, caus­ing both her­self and Hen­ry to be pleas­ant­ly shocked. How­ev­er, in a strange twist, a glitch in the machine results in her name being cut off, dis­play­ing only the incom­plete let­ters “ADI,” a visu­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion of her iden­ti­ty that, despite the incom­plete nature, feels odd­ly sig­nif­i­cant. This rare moment, where Addie leaves a mark, not through her usu­al invis­i­bil­i­ty but through the briefest of records, is one that stands as a small defi­ance of her oth­er­wise for­got­ten exis­tence, a brief rebel­lion against the curse that often eras­es her from the mem­o­ries of those she encoun­ters.

As the night con­tin­ues, Hen­ry and Addie find them­selves swept into the ener­gy and unpre­dictabil­i­ty of New York’s nightlife. With a shared sense of spon­tane­ity, they nav­i­gate the city’s excite­ment, find­ing them­selves immersed in expe­ri­ences that, while exhil­a­rat­ing, also reveal deep­er truths about their per­son­al lives. Addie, ever resource­ful, clev­er­ly acquires the mon­ey they need to keep their evening going, a deci­sion that sub­tly show­cas­es the edges of her moral flex­i­bil­i­ty. This moment high­lights her abil­i­ty to blend in and make the best of cir­cum­stances, liv­ing on the fringes of soci­etal expec­ta­tions. Their night even­tu­al­ly leads them to the Nite­hawk Cin­e­ma, a place filled with per­son­al sig­nif­i­cance for Addie, who finds solace in the time­less­ness of this New York spot—a sanc­tu­ary that con­nects her to frag­ments of the past amidst the city’s con­stant rein­ven­tion. There, they set­tle into the expe­ri­ence of watch­ing Hitch­cock­’s “North by North­west,” a film that Hen­ry con­fess­es he’s nev­er seen before, a detail that feels like a small yet mean­ing­ful reflec­tion of his own unchart­ed exis­tence. But the evening is not as sim­ple as it seems; an under­ly­ing ten­sion builds with­in Hen­ry, his unease grow­ing as the film plays on, until he can no longer stay and abrupt­ly exits the the­ater, his dis­com­fort cloud­ing the atmos­phere.

Once out­side, with the cool air of the night envelop­ing them, Hen­ry opens up to Addie in a raw moment of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, shar­ing the depth of his fear of time pass­ing him by. He admits that he feels as though he’s not tru­ly liv­ing, that the clock is tick­ing away on dreams and ambi­tions that seem to fade before he can achieve them. Addie, whose exis­tence has spanned cen­turies, lis­tens intent­ly, her own expe­ri­ence with the pas­sage of time form­ing an under­stand­ing between them. Her immor­tal­i­ty, while seem­ing­ly a gift, has brought her its own brand of lone­li­ness and dis­con­nect, as she watch­es lives unfold and with­er around her, yet nev­er able to be a per­ma­nent part of any of them. Henry’s con­fes­sion res­onates deeply with her, as she reflects on her own inter­nal strug­gle between the desire to escape the relent­less march of time and the knowl­edge that she is for­ev­er trapped in it, unable to form last­ing bonds. This moment of hon­esty between them offers a glimpse into the com­plex­i­ties of their emo­tion­al worlds—both tied to time, yet in dif­fer­ent, often painful ways. The chap­ter unfolds a rich tapes­try of their per­son­al bat­tles with time, mem­o­ry, and mean­ing, high­light­ing the uni­ver­sal yearn­ing to find last­ing sig­nif­i­cance in a world that con­stant­ly changes. Through these poignant exchanges, they con­tin­ue to draw clos­er, each seek­ing some­thing that tran­scends the fleet­ing nature of their desires, only to dis­cov­er that the more they long for per­ma­nence, the more they are remind­ed of their own tran­sience.