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Lisa is giving me a thoughtful look over her coffee. “I envy you. I wish I could feel deeply. If I get the hots for someone, it’s always about sex, nothing more. There isn’t a great love story in my future.”
She says it in a matter-of-fact tone, like she’s completely accepted it. “Maybe you’re the lucky one,” I reply.
“Right?” she agrees. “At least I don’t get miserable.”
“I’m not miserable,” I lie.
“I’m the one looking at you.” She pauses. “Maybe you can hit him up when you get back home? Or right now…Seriously. I believe in going after what you want. If you want to spend the next few months with him in Palo Alto or wherever the fuck he is, then do it. There will always be art and opportunities to study it, but young love…”
“Now you sound like a romantic.”
She shrugs.
It’s not that I’m not tempted to reach out to Tristan. I am. But what if he has already moved on? What if I’m the only one still dwelling on our week together?
“It’s not just my work,” I explain. “Tristan also doesn’t have time for a relationship.” I shrug. “At any rate, I’m fine. I’m not miserable. I’m not pining or whatever. When I get back home, I’ll have a few more credits to earn, then graduation, then my research, maybe another international study course, and then the kind of career I’ve always dreamed of having. I’m not tossing all that away because ofyoung love.”
“As you say.” Lisa looks unconvinced, but she doesn’t push it. “If you need help to forget him, my invitation to the party still stands.”
“Thanks,” I reply, though I have no intention of attending any parties.
The sensible thing is to focus on finishing my program, and then back home, in the familiar environment where I’d existed before Tristan, I’ll finally move on.
CHAPTER19
TRISTAN
“Congratulations on returning to your natural habitat,” Maddie says on the phone, her tone overflowing with disapproval. “I take it you’re working twenty-two-hour days again while surviving on energy drinks?”
With a chuckle, I turn a wry glance around my office. The glass-walled space occupies a large corner of one of the top floors of a new commercial building. Through the clear glass dividing my office from the main office space, I can see some of my new employees at their desks. During the day, we have meetings, and I interview more people. At night, I write code. It’s a lot of work, but I don’t mind. It’s the life I’m used to.
“I’m taking good care of myself, Mads.”
“You’d better be,” she replies. “I miss you, kiddo. I’m gladwe got to spend a few days together before you ran off to Florence.”
At the mention of Florence, my head fills with images of Cora. Her voice. Her scent. It’s as if she’s in the room with me, and I only need to stretch out my hand to touch her.
“What happened with the girl?” Maddie continues, oblivious to my thoughts. “The girl you met in Florence.”
God, I miss her. I miss her tiny bedroom, the soft cotton sheets on her bed, the flowers on her balcony, her horrible Italian…
What happened?
I left.
And now I miss her with an intensity that borders on insanity.
“Nothing happened,” I tell Maddie. The two words feel like centuries of sand burying an entire civilization until no trace remains on the surface. “Cora…She’s still in Florence, finishing her course.”
Maddie sighs regretfully. “Ah well, you’ll always have Florence.”
“Yes, we will,” I agree in a toneless voice.
Someone on Maddie’s side says something to her. “I gotta go,” she tells me, her tone gentle. “Work is crazy. See you when I see you, kiddo.”
The call ends, leaving me alone with the ghost of my week with Cora and the silent memories that have haunted me since I left her.
I remember everything we did together, and always, always, I see Cora’s face in my head, and her smile is like a calm oasis in the storm that is my life.
