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Part V
June, 1991
Chapter One
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Rome, May 29, 1991
Dear Peter the Eater,
I’m sitting at a café across from the Pantheon. It’s early on a Wednesday morning, and I’m watching people go to work or the market. They’re all dressed to the nines compared to Americans and darting around on tiny motorbikes too.
Being in the States for almost a year has screwed with my perception of normal because everything about Rome used to seem “everyday” to me, and now I can’t catch my breath because it’s all so awesome. Literally awe-inspiring. Maybe because of you and your pictures I’m seeing the city with new eyes. I know you’d have your camera glued to your face if you were here. Just imagining that makes me miss you even more. Maybe one day we can be in Rome together.
It’s crazy that only two days ago I was with you. Travel makes time strange. I wish we’d been able to be together before I left. I should have said no to that trip with Leslie’s family. I regret it now. You mean so much to me. A whole summer without you is too long.
Tell me you miss me too. Tell me you want me as much as I want you. Promise to wait for me to come back. It’ll be worth it. This fall everything will be amazing. I’ll make sure things are different for us. Trust me. No more unhappiness. No more fights. Tell me you believe me, Peter.
But don’t tell me in a letter. My dad might find it and kill me. Keep the letters you send clean, okay? Like we’re brothers. Or priests. But not those kinds of priests. You know what I mean.
I’m going to mail this before I go back to the flat. So, no need to say Sunsphere as a code word. I’ll just say it: I love you, and I miss you so much. I’ll try to call when I can.
Yours forever, until the Colosseum crumbles, until the moon falls from the sky,
Adam
The green lawnwas lush under my bare feet as I walked to our mailbox, my blue cotton T-shirt stuck to my back and my dark, curly hair wildly frizzed. I hadn’t mowed the grass in a week, despite my father’s pointed hints, and sweat bees threatened my hairy legs, exposed beneath my knee-length cargo shorts.
Opening the mailbox, I glanced to the far end of the street toward my sort-of boyfriend Adam’s home. The last time I’d driven past, the ranch-style house stood empty and dark, the windows covered with blinds. It looked lonely and older, even though a neighbor had agreed to mow and keep the front flowerbeds tidy while Adam, his twin sister Sarah, and their older brother Mo visited their parents in Rome.
Soon enough I’d stop expecting to see Adam sauntering down the street with a broad smile, the sun glinting in the red highlights of his chestnut hair. I wouldn’t check anymore to see if his Easter-egg green Mercedes was parked in the driveway. I wouldn’t feel an unwanted pang of regret when it wasn’t. But I could forgive myself the indulgence for now. It’d only been two weeks, and habits were hard to break.
In the mailbox, amid the stack of junk catalogs and bills, there it was: a long, white envelope with a ton of colorful stamps. My heart kicked hard, and I caught my breath, a zing of excitement shooting up my spine.
Glancing around, like the letter was a secret, I wiped my sweaty forehead on my shoulder and took some steadying breaths. Who knew what Adam might have written? Thinking of the deranged not-a-breakup-letter he’d left in my mailbox back at Christmas, there was no telling what he might have to say.
Shoving the rest of the mail under my arm, I ripped open the envelope and pulled out a sheet of regular notebook paper. It was full of his familiar handwriting. A postcard was tucked in the middle. The front was a picture of the Pantheon at night, glowing pink and surrounded by tourists. The back of the card was blank.
Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I read over the letter, and tried not to believe everything he’d written. Just because it was what I wanted to hear didn’t mean it was true. Shoving the postcard and letter back into the envelope, I tried to stop the tide of hope in my heart.
I already knew what happened when I combined hope with Adam: pain.
I wasn’t going to put myself through it again. I had a scheme. I’d keep an optimistic distance. Plan for the best, but not be surprised by the worst. Control my emotions and control myself.
I headed back inside, keeping my head high and my eyes glued to the glaring white clapboard of my two-story house. I patted my Volvo as I walked past it, happy my mom had ignored my wish for a darkroom and insisted I get a car instead. The Volvo had opened a lot more doors for me than a darkroom ever could.
Entering our blessedly cool front hallway, I blinked to readjust my sight now that I was out of the blazing sun. Deciding to grab a cold soda, I passed by our functional-but-not-fashionable living room. I really wanted one of Dad’s beers. But my parents didn’t have any idea how often I drank at my friends’ houses, and with everything so weird between us now, I didn’t want to make things harder.
I stopped in my tracks after entering the kitchen. “Oh, hey.”
“Hey,” Mom said neutrally from where she perched on a stool by the kitchen counter, eating string cheese and flipping through the paper.
We hadn’t spoken more than a few words to each other in the two weeks since I’d come out to her after my graduation from Kingsley. I got the impression she didn’t know what to say and was opting for silence. I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to break the ice. She was the parent, and it was about time she did someparentingwhen it came to me.
I ignored her in favor of grabbing a cola from the fridge. I stood at the counter, sorting through the mail. After tossing the junk into the trash, I stacked the bills neatly for her to look at later. Unsure what to do with Adam’s letter, I put it off to the side.
“It’s going to be over a hundred today,” Mom murmured, pointing at the weather report in the paper.
