I am in Italy.
“So, how do you like Rome so far?” he says.
Driving here in the cab, I had seen a city both old and new. Crumbling buildings defiantly stood where they were placed thousands of years before, right in the midst of brand new architecture. It seemed like magic every time you turned your head and get a glimpse of forever ago, like the past was rising up out of the ashes and reminding you she was still there. And then there were the motorbikes and the scooters and the teeny tiny cars that careened and swerved and honked hysterically at everything in their path. The laundry that fluttered merrily on almost every balcony and the way as people walked down the street you heard music drifting out from here and there, providing Italian life with a continuous soundtrack.
“I wish I never had to leave,” I admit. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Noah nods and waits for me to be seated before he seats himself.
“The first time I was here, I thought the whole place looked like a ghetto. It took a couple of days for me to fall in love, but ever since then, I find myself craving this place when I’m home in America. I do everything I can to come as often as possible.”
I could see that happening to myself. No wonder Leah wanted to make her baby here. She must have visited before. All rich girls made a pilgrimage to Rome at some point in their lavish lives, for shopping of course.
When we both had a glass of wine in front of us and the waiter was walking away with our order in his head. Noah turned to me with a concerned look on his face.
“Did you see him? Your Caleb?”
“From a distance,” I laugh because he was so far from “my Caleb” it was ridiculous. “I was five floors below, spying on their hotel window.”
“Do you know what plan of action you are going to take yet?”
I shook my head.
“Not a clue, but I have to do it. I’ll figure it out…I have a couple of hours to come up with something.”
“An honest something?” he teases, cocking his head in a way that made his hair fall attractively into his eyes.
“Yes,” I laugh. It was so nice to laugh.
“You know, Olivia. What you’re doing. It’s the right thing.”
“What? Being honest?” I take a nervous sip of my wine. There was nothing more uncomfortable than discussing my integrity, or lack thereof.
“No.”
I look up surprised.
“Going after what you love. Despite everything you’ve done, and I won’t sugarcoat, you’ve done some pretty lousy things, but you did it all because you love this single human being so much you couldn’t help yourself. There is an honesty in that,”
“Ha! There is no honesty in me, I assure you.”
“You’re wrong.”
I c**k my skeptical head. No one in their right mind would call me honest, especially if they’d heard my story.
“I’ve never met someone who’s quite as honest about their bad deeds and who speaks with so much candor about their feelings. Are you a bad person, Olivia?”
“Yes,” I say easily.
“See. Your behavior is the problem. You allow yourself to act on every feeling rather than taking the time to be virtuous.”
“Virtue,” I repeat the foreign word, trying my hardest to concentrate on its meaning.
“It’s funny how your life keeps bumping into his,” he says, changing the direction of the conversation. “I mean what are the chances of his getting amnesia and then running into you twice in twenty-four hours?”
I shrug.
“—only to strike up a conversation with you, both times, and then ask you out to coffee?” he continues.
“I know,” I sigh, “I bought a subscription to irony the day I met him.”
“There’s something more there, that you’re not seeing.”
“What? Like a fate thing?” I hated fate. He was a bored little brat who couldn’t let people heal in peace.
“I don’t think so.”
“Then what do you think?” The space in between his eyebrows was puckered and his eyes were seeing something I was dying to get a peak of.
“I think that after the first time you give your heart away, you never get it back. The rest of your life is just you pretending that you still have a heart.”
“Okaay…”
“So, just think about that,” he shrugs casually. “He’s living, but he’s broken.”
“How do you know?” I ask. Caleb didn’t look broken to me. He appeared to have completely moved on.
“Because from approximately twelve hours of knowing you, I have decided that I will never forget you, even if we never speak another word to each other. You leave a very strong impression. I can only imagine how that poor bastard feels after so many years of keeping company with you.”
“It feels like a very hard blow to the head,” I laugh, but I am sadly serious. He stares at me for what seems like forever and then he says, “Fight clean. Be honest. That’s the way you’ll win him back. But, if you see that he’s truly happy, leave him be.”
“I don‘t know if I can do that,” I say honestly. “I’m not sure I’m capable of walking away.”
“That’s because you don’t know how to love.”
“Are you saying I don’t love him?” I am shocked. After everything I told him, I thought that my love was obvious. Who would fight this hard without love?