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Ethan
It takes an hour and a half to reach the far end of the ruins, backing onto an overgrown field. I expected him to revolt halfway through, but he just trailed silently after me, biting at a bit of dry skin on his lip.
Feet aching, I sit down in a patch of sweet-smelling wildflowers and pull the fruit I bought from my pocket. “My mom would love this place. This is going on our travel list, if I can manage to find it again.”
Victor stands there with his hands in his pockets for a long time, staring into the distance, as I peel an orange and take a bite. “Damn. This is the best fruit I’ve ever tasted.”
Slowly, he folds his legs under him and sits next to me, taking the segment I offer. The sun is bleaching his tousled hair. He takes a bite, and the juice runs over his palm and down his wrist. Absently, like a cat, he licks it off in long strokes. He’s like a piece of lazy Italian summer that has been locked away in the dark for too long. He slides the fruit onto his tongue, sucks on it, and I catch myself staring at his juice-stained mouth. When my eyes return to his, he’s watching me expressionlessly, but his lips move as he swallows.
“It’s dangerous, isn’t it? Even for you,” Trying to change the subject, I blurt something that’s been on my mind for days. “To swim to Capri.”
After a long pause, he nods. He pulls up a handful of grass and starts trying to braid the pieces together. He’s clearly never done it before. I’d show him, but my hands have always been too big.
“Then why would you do it?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” he says quietly. “For you? You think you’re special?”
“No.” I stare at my hands. “I just don’t get it. Do you miss your team that much?”
A strange, tight laugh bubbles out of him, and he flops onto his back in the grass. His chest rises and falls, and I sigh. He’s impossible.
I dig in my pocket and pull out the sunglasses I bought in the visitor center. These are round and hipster-ish, because the only other option was bug-eyed Lance Armstrong wannabes.
Something flashes next to me and Victor lies back down, sliding my sunglasses over his eyes. “I paid for those,” I gripe.
“They look stupid on you.”
“I liked it better when you weren’t talking.”
“I’ll cancel my swim to Capri,” he suggests, wrinkling his nose, “if you can tell me what you want from your life.”
“That’s easy. I want to take my mom on a trip around the world.”
“Bullshit.”
“Excuse me?”
He sits up and tips the glasses down until I can see his eerie eyes. “You’ve made helping people your personality so that you don’t have to come up with your own. If your precious friend never told you that, she’s doing you a disservice. And if you’re not going to be honest, then I’ll do the race and I’ll think of you while I’m drowning.”
I should be angry at him, tell him he’s wrong, but I can’t.
Standing up and shading my eyes, I turn in a circle and take in the scenery all around us—silvery trees, sweeping hillsides, the hazy air. I can hear bees in the grass and a hawk way up above our heads. I want to stay here forever and I want to go home. I never want to see him again and I can’t stand to look away.
“Say it,” he demands quietly.
“I don’t have time to think about myself. But sometimes I wake up and I’m justmadeof want. I don’t even know what for. It’s all caught in my chest in this big snarl, but I can’t pull it apart. And it hurts.”
“You should see someone if that lasts more than four hours.”
I aim a kick at his head and he rolls over in the grass, laughing, his shirt riding up over the smooth, olive skin of his hips.
On the long walk back through the ruins, I catch him with the audio guide to his ear as we pass the home of the two definitely-fucking booksellers.
Because we don’t have any fresh clothes and I’m about to go crazy looking at his shoulders in that tank top, I stop in the gift shop and buy two of the only shirts they have. Victor holds up the bright blue tee, grimacing. “‘Keep calm, I’m Roman’?”
“I didn’t write them.”
I watch out of the corner of my eye as he changes, struggling with my fragile grip on control. Untouchable Victor drove me crazy, but this version of him, fey and docile and so breakable—I don’t know what to do with him and I don’t have names for the things I want to do.
