APRIL 21
This is my third attempt to sit down and write about what happened in Rome. I can’t believe I’m writing this, but it’s OVER.
I was never able to find X’s conference online, so when I arrived I called his cell phone and told him I was at the train station with some great news. Right then an announcement started on the station’s overhead speakers, and when things finally quieted down, I realized that something was wrong. He told me to wait right where I was.
A half hour later he came charging into the train station, and something was definitely wrong. I asked him if he wanted to sit in one of the station’s cafés, and for the next twenty minutes I just listened to him talk. Bottom line: He feels like his work has gotten stagnant, he needs some new creative space, and he’s decided to leave the school and pursue another job in Rome. Oh, and we’re over.
Over.
I just sat there, his words swirling around me. It was like my mind couldn’t process it. And then it all hit me. This was the end. He was breaking up with me.
Suddenly I couldn’t hear his excuses anymore, only the hard truths. I’d spent nine months lying to my friends. I’d strained ties with my family. I’d completely changed my life to be closer to him, and our relationship had never been to him what it was to me. I had the fleeting thought that I could talk him out of it—tell him that I’d figured out a way to stay in Florence even longer—but even in that brief moment of denial I knew it was useless. When someone walks out of a relationship, there’s nothing you can do to keep them there.
X was still talking when I stood. I said good-bye to him in a normal voice, like I hadn’t just been shattered into a million pieces, then went to the counter and bought a return ticket on the very next train. I hadn’t even been in Rome for an hour. I never even got to wear my dress.
APRIL 22
Woke up this morning thinking I’d had some kind of nightmare, but just like the last few days, reality was waiting for me to get my bearings so it could knock me down again. My eyes were so swollen from crying myself to sleep that I had to sit with a cold washcloth over them before I looked acceptable enough to go to class. The whole weekend I’d been holding on to a tiny shred of hope that X would be in class this morning, but of course he wasn’t. Can it really just be over? Nothing has ever hurt this badly. Nothing.
APRIL 25
It turns out that Francesca knew all along. Last night after dinner she put her arm around me and told me that X wasn’t worth it, and he never had been. I was so surprised. Did everyone know?
MAY 2
This morning Petrucione announced that X has resigned from his position. I felt a huge relief—not because he’s officially gone, but because someone said his name. I didn’t let people in on the relationship, and so now I can’t let them in on my heartache. I feel so alone. Talking to Francesca doesn’t help. If I bring him up, she says bad things about him, and I end up feeling worse. Florence is the perfect place to fall in love, which means it’s also the worst place to be heartbroken. Some days I just want to go home. Should I even stay through summer?
“Mom,” I whispered. Her sadness was smeared across the journal like paint that had never had the chance to dry. How was it possible that she’d had her heart smashed to smithereens in a Rome train station and never even mentioned it to me? Had I even known this woman?
I scanned through the last few entries again. No doubt about it, X had been a serious jerk. I especially hated that he’d told her he needed “new creative space.” What kind of a line was that? And it was awful that she hadn’t seen the end coming, especially when it was so obvious from the outside that the relationship wasn’t going anywhere. Reading those last few entries had been like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
And then there was Howard. I rested my finger on the entry about him and Adrienne. He’d definitely had something going on behind the scenes too. Had he and Adrienne been dating and broken up just before my mom and X? Had both my parents been interested in other people and just sort of fallen together for a while? Is that why they hadn’t lasted? And what had been so special about X, anyway?
I wanted to keep reading, but my eyelids insisted on doing this slow downward drag. Finally I gave up, tucking the journal into the nightstand and switching out the light.
Chapter 16
“I NEED YOUR HELP.” I’D woken that morning with a brilliant idea, and even though I’d waited until a socially acceptable hour, I’d still had to practically drag Ren out of his bed. Now we were sitting on his front porch and he looked only about thirty percent awake.