Chap­ter VIII offers a snap­shot of a night in New York City, where Hen­ry and Addie find them­selves nav­i­gat­ing the bustling streets of Flat­bush, each step laden with the promise of a rare con­nec­tion and the shared enjoy­ment of sim­ple plea­sures. As they move through the vibrant food truck scene, Addie, for per­haps the first time in cen­turies, savors the fla­vors of the world around her not as sus­te­nance but as a way to rev­el in life’s fleet­ing joys. The scene is alive with the sound of clink­ing uten­sils, the siz­zle of food being cooked, and the laugh­ter of peo­ple bond­ing over shared meals, yet, for Addie, it’s a trans­for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence. She’s no longer eat­ing to sur­vive, but eat­ing to feel the rich­ness of human expe­ri­ence, embrac­ing the plea­sures of food that tran­scend hunger. And in this shared expe­ri­ence with Hen­ry, there is a qui­et beau­ty in the sim­plic­i­ty of it all, allow­ing Addie to tem­porar­i­ly escape the weight of her immor­tal exis­tence, if only for a moment. But even with­in the com­fort of this casu­al exchange, a sub­tle shift occurs. As they enjoy their meal togeth­er, Addie observes Henry’s inter­ac­tion with a food truck worker—a fleet­ing exchange that res­onates in a way she hadn’t expect­ed. There’s a shared look, a brief con­nec­tion that goes unno­ticed by Hen­ry but doesn’t escape Addie’s per­cep­tive eye. This moment, though small, rais­es an unex­pect­ed ques­tion in Addie’s heart: Could Hen­ry be form­ing con­nec­tions with peo­ple in ways that she her­self nev­er could?

Their night of explo­ration then leads them to a French bak­ery, owned by Michel, a friend of Del­phine, where the enchant­ment of New York City fades into the famil­iar warmth of Paris. The small shop, suf­fused with the com­fort­ing aro­ma of fresh­ly baked pas­tries, pulls Addie deep­er into a world she can nev­er ful­ly return to. Here, amidst the intox­i­cat­ing smells of crois­sants and éclairs, Addie expe­ri­ences a pro­found sense of nos­tal­gia, almost as though she’s step­ping back into the Paris she once knew. The French lan­guage, which she hasn’t heard spo­ken so freely in years, wraps around her like an old, famil­iar blan­ket, bring­ing a warmth she hasn’t felt in ages. Michel’s ges­ture of refus­ing pay­ment for the pas­tries, a sim­ple yet pro­found act of kind­ness, is more than just a wel­com­ing gesture—it feels like a moment where time stands still, where Addie can feel the pulse of the past in the present. It is moments like these—small, inti­mate, and unexpected—that offer Addie glimpses of what it means to belong, even if only tem­porar­i­ly, to a place or to a mem­o­ry.

As the evening con­tin­ues, Hen­ry and Addie move on to Bea’s din­ner par­ty, an event that serves as both a con­tin­u­a­tion of their night and a turn­ing point in their devel­op­ing rela­tion­ship. Hen­ry opens up in small ways, reveal­ing a part of his past with Tabitha, a woman who once occu­pied his heart, yet he speaks of her with a cer­tain detach­ment. Addie, sens­ing the emo­tion­al under­cur­rent in Henry’s words, real­izes that this is a sto­ry left untold, a chap­ter of his life that still holds pow­er over him. There is a ten­der­ness in his admis­sion, a vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty that Addie rec­og­nizes, and it calls to her own expe­ri­ences of unspo­ken grief. Yet, as they enter Bea’s home, Addie finds her­self nav­i­gat­ing a new world—a social cir­cle where she’s still an out­sider, despite her inti­mate con­nec­tion with Hen­ry. Bea’s greet­ing, though warm, feels charged with a sub­tle famil­iar­i­ty, hint­ing at past inter­ac­tions that Addie can’t quite place, while Robbie’s arrival intro­duces a ten­sion that catch­es her off guard. The unspo­ken com­plex­i­ties between Hen­ry and Rob­bie cre­ate a sub­tle ten­sion, one that Addie sens­es with­out ful­ly under­stand­ing, yet it’s enough to dis­rupt the frag­ile sense of nor­mal­cy she’s begun to expe­ri­ence. As the evening pro­gress­es, she is pulled deep­er into this web of rela­tion­ships, each thread offer­ing both poten­tial con­nec­tions and the haunt­ing aware­ness of her eter­nal iso­la­tion. It’s a night of explo­ration and intro­spec­tion, where Addie is faced with the para­dox of long­ing for con­nec­tion while grap­pling with the inevitable truth of her own sep­a­ra­tion from the human expe­ri­ence. The com­plex­i­ty of human interaction—marked by love, jeal­ousy, friend­ship, and the end­less search for meaning—pushes Addie to the brink of under­stand­ing her place with­in it all. With each pass­ing con­ver­sa­tion, each sub­tle glance, and each inter­ac­tion, Addie real­izes just how frag­ile and fleet­ing her expe­ri­ences in the world tru­ly are, yet how deeply she craves those con­nec­tions.