With my prescription, I settle into a new routine. Or well, my old routine. I return to school and one of my classes has bought me a 'get well'-basket with candles and artisanal honey and sweets. The gesture smoulders like an ember in the pit of my stomach and I light a candle that evening. I peer into the flickering flame, bright and warm. When I blow it out, the wax has melted into irregular bumps. It seems like a metaphor for my life. I was never alight, but now I'm burning and melting, changing shapes into something new and unpredictable. I wouldn't mind burning out. Maybe I need to live a life before I can die. A life where the days don't all blur together, where I feel more than emptiness, more than sinking guilt, where I can fear the abyss.

I feed every two days on strangers. They're still looming shapes in my dreams, faces and stories I load onto my shoulders. Bits and pieces of people that stick to my skin and drip down my fingers.

I think about the people that've been my neighbours, my parishioners. Were they my victims too? No, I've done good things. If my students can appreciate me for teaching them a dead language, why wouldn't all those others appreciate me for listening to their worries and confessions in the seclusion of my church, for my advice, for teaching them how to live? Or is that where I've gone wrong?

I remember a girl once, who didn't want to marry and I told her to respect the wishes of her parents. As a monster, did I have the right to tell others right from wrong? I only knew what I was taught; was it wrong to teach what I was taught? To not think? I fear the harm I have done. I have spoken about things I knew nothing about. I had the audacity to think my opinion carried any value. Does not my immortality make my life even more insignificant? There is no death to counterbalance. Nobody remembers me; I remember them. Maybe I am greedy when I wish for more while I can still remember myself. Remember the bits and pieces of people that I've shaped, that shaped me. Remembering is a curse, but I shouldn't forget it's also a blessing.

***

I visit Emile once a week, twice a week, thrice a week. Every time, something coils tighter and tighter. But every time, something also settles more and more, like sinking into a soft pillow and then sinking more. I start to feed before I go to Emile or on days I don't see him, so I can stay longer. Sometimes, we call.

"Happy IDAHOT!"

"Happy what?"

"The International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia."

"Is that a day? Why do you need a day?"

Emile laughs. "Shouldn't you know? You've lived through Stonewall and the first Pride Parades."
"I'm sorry. I just ... I never concerned myself with it."

"Don't worry. You grew up without any of this, so you're forgiven. I bet some LGBT people don't even know they have a day in May too, and not just Pride month."

"Pride month?"

"June." Emile chuckles. "You poor old fool. Maybe you should go with me tomorrow. I hope you are aware of Belgian Pride."

And so we go. The music is too loud for me, and the people too abundant, but I've never seen people celebrating who they are like this. I don't understand it. How can they be so happy when they are told they are sinners? But times have changed. Maybe they have never heard they are sinners. I see parents here, and young children. There are also lots of couples holding hands and teenagers with rainbows on their faces. I even recognise a few, but I don't greet them and they don't see me. Why would they? I don't even know what I'm doing here. I'm not one of them. I might be asexual, but I'm not young, and I'm not proud, or in love. I'm here for Emile. But he's not young either, or in love. And he doesn't look very proud. At least not with all the colours. But he's here, so does that mean he's proud?

I wonder what people see. Do they see two gay men? But he's not gay. I'm not gay. But we're two men at a gay pride, so maybe they automatically assume we're a couple, even though we're not holding hands. I actually wouldn't mind that. Holding hands, or looking like a couple. Perhaps I should be proud of that? Proud that I've become open-minded enough that I wouldn't mind looking like something I'm not. Proud that I don't feel like a sinner for this. But what is this compared to the atrocities I've done?

We don't talk much, but we look and we walk, and whenever I catch Emile's gaze, he smiles. We've never met up on a Sunday before, but now that we have, I can't imagine how I could've waited for Monday or Tuesday. We've never met up during a weekend before. It would be different with Aurélie there. Less 'us'. I see her on Fridays, and I like those Fridays, but I can't ever forget that she doesn't know. She has unknowingly become an outsider when before, I was the outsider.

Emile walks me to my apartment building. He doesn't come up. He never has, but I think it's better this way. The emptiness would be emptier with the imprint of his presence.

I pass Charles who is locking his door. "Good evening."

"Dante! Nice to see you. How are you doing?"

"I'm ... well." I'm surprised to realise it's true. "I went to Pride."

"You're gay? I didn't expect that. You're so ..."

"I'm not. I, uhm ... I went to support a friend. He asked me."

"A friend. That's nice of you. I've always thought that whole parade stuff a little much. Too many costumes and paint and political propaganda and too little protest. That younger generation. How do they think they will be accepted if they behave as fools?" He purses his lips. "I didn't think people of our generation actually went to that thing."

I silently agree, but I feel compelled to defend my students. I don't want to live in the past. "There were people of all ages. Parents too, and little kids."

"All the better for them. It's not my fight, so they can do whatever they want." Charles shoves his keys in his pocket. "I'll be on my way them. I'm going to the movies with Monique." I vaguely remember that Monique is his girlfriend and it tightens the noose around my neck. He clearly expects me to know who he's talking about, but I never paid him much attention whenever he accosted me. Perhaps I should stop thinking about it as accosting.

While cooking, I play Ravel and my thoughts drift with the waves of La mer. I wish I was at Emile's. It is ... strange to not have him at my side. I wanted to revel in his presence and our connection a little longer, a few more hours, a day, a week. I want to watch him cook, or cook with him, or for him. I want to be silent and catch his gaze and feel like we've said everything. We sit at the table and smile for no reason and I take his hand. I take his hand. Like we're a couple. A couple. For Christ's sake, he's my first and only friend! Why can it never be so simple?

***

I don't understand what I'm feeling. I don't want what I'm feeling. I want a friend, not a lover. Lovers turn people into fools. Maybe I am a fool, but I can't fall in love. The closest I'll ever come is when I'm looking for someone to drink from. Pheromones, chemical reactions, instinct. But I am the predator, not the prey. How can I have fallen prey to it now?

I don't understand love. How can I love someone when I am a monster? When I am incapable of it? Emile said so. I am aromantic. Or maybe I am just broken. All those potions and experiments that made me what I am will surely have done more damage than is visible to the eye. I don't feel love. I feel loss and guilt and pain. I feel void.

I don't understand how people can feel love. It is supposedly such an omnipresent thing, but how come I have never felt its presence? I know it must be there. I've seen it in others, though it's not for me. I've seen people on their death beds, people on their wedding, people not yet old enough to know themselves and yet they all love. Even if it were an illusion, shouldn't an illusion that so many people believe in be taken seriously? But how can I take it seriously when it is such a foolish thing? How can I understand it when I only know the mellowness of sorrow and sympathy? The void drains everything and only loneliness and guilt and suffering are stuck up here. I don't understand how other people's emotions can overflow when mine only drain away.

I don't understand how people wish for love. It complicates. It hurts. Why do they choose to hurt? Emile is my friend and already the realisation that I wish for more hurts. I wish I didn't wish for more, that I wasn't so selfish. I wish I was happy with what I have. Haven't I learned my lesson yet? Being content with what you have is the greatest wealth. The antique philosophers knew that too; why don't I? No doubt the fool in me, the fool in love.

I don't understand how people are not more afraid of love. It disrupts everything. I can't control it. I want to squash it in my fist, to feel it swirl down the drain with my happiness and every other positive emotion. Maybe it doesn't disappear because it's not a positive emotion. It's the cow dung attracting the flies. The predator luring in the prey. Or the prey the predator, who knows. The pheromones will pull me to Emile and I will bite him and I will drain him and forget how I am drained, and when he is empty, I'll be emptier.

I don't understand why love is so unreasonable. It should benefit us. Reason benefits us. It could never work, I tell myself. I write it down. But do I listen? I read it over and over, but I never listen. I am too old. I will kill him. I will outlive him. I will remember him. I will bore him. Aurélie doesn't know what I am. Emile will hate me. Emile will see me for who I am. I will feel. I don't want to feel. I'm afraid.

I want to hold his hand.