He did. Tall, blonde, and in dress pants with a tie pulled in disarray around his neck.

“Hard day?” he asked, leaning on the banister and looking out over the water.

“Yes. You?”

“Very.” He smiled at me and I saw by the yellowness of his teeth that he was a smoker.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he nodded toward my empty glass and I shook my head yes.

“A shot of anything.”

“Okay.”

He came back with two. Good. I thought. My travels to wasted land would go all the faster.

We drank for over an hour before I invited him to the dance floor. He was a mediocre dancer but what did it matter at this point? I ignored my disgust at the way he rammed himself into the back of me and kept moving, focusing on the swirling in my head. The night became thick with hasty kisses and liquor provoked fondling and by midnight we were skipping through the streets toward my hotel.

“Hold on,” he said once we were inside and he was lying on top of me. I remember seeing him pull a condom from his wallet. He slapped it in the palm of his hand like I had seen people do with cigarette cartons and then ripped the packaging open with his teeth. I cringed, disgusted.

And then I remember feeling nothing. I just lay there and he didn’t seem to care at all. So this is how I am losing my virginity. I remember thinking. To a stranger, not to Caleb. When it was done, he fell asleep. I laid awake all night, sick to my stomach and hating myself. In the morning he left early. I never got his name. I waited anxiously for the guilt to come but all I felt was numbness. I knew that if I searched hard enough for those feelings that were lurking beneath the surface, I would find revulsion, but I wasn’t ready to hate myself. I was too busy hating Caleb. Around midday I heard a fumbling outside of the door. I knew he would come. He obtained a key to the room at the front desk and let himself in. I was sitting at the window when the door opened, I hadn’t showered and my hair was a rat’s nest around my face.

He didn’t say anything when he saw me, his eyes roamed around the room looking for signs of my pain. The mess, my clothes tossed here and there. His eyes fell on the condom wrapper that was ripped and perched on the nightstand. His hand on her thigh—my condom wrapper. These two images are burned into both of our memories forever, reaching out as a stumbling block into future relationships.

Unbeknownst to me, Caleb would never again be able to look at a condom wrapper without feeling sick. I saw realization snap into his face. His hurt came in the form of a twitch and then a gentle draining of the light from his eyes. I took it a step further, because remember, I fight dirty.

“I took Jessica Alexander to get the abortion. I told her to do it.” It took him a minute to grasp what I was saying. I looked at the cars that were driving by. I pictured myself putting my emotions in one of those cars and then watching it drive away. Feel nothing, I told myself. Feel nothing like he felt nothing when he cheated on me.

“I wanted you so badly that I connived and manipulated to get you. I stalked you for months. I knew every girl you dated. I knew every place you took each one. I planned it all out.” He still said nothing but I could feel his silent raging somewhere behind me. It was building and rolling off his body in waves.

“I always loved you. From the moment you first spoke to me.” Still nothing.

“I had sex with a stranger, to hurt you.” Those words sucked the air right out of the room. I felt my lungs constrict as the weight of what I had done started pressing down on me. Oh god, oh god, oh god…..

I heard a thud and I turned slowly to see Caleb, on his knees, his face fallen into his hands. I could see his body shaking, from tears or anger I did not know. He made no sound; there were just those silent convulsions that I would remember forever. My body stared to tremble as I realized what was happening. Everything was gone now. Me, him—us. We were forever changed. I didn’t want to live. I considered hurling myself out of the window so I wouldn’t have to face the agony of it all. I had hurt the person I loved the most, the only person I had. All to avenge myself. And in the end, I had destroyed myself. Minutes passed, then an hour. I wanted to go to him, to beg him to forgive me, to tell him that I would kill myself if he didn’t, but I couldn’t. I had too much cold in me for that. Why didn’t I see it before? The person I really was. How had I never known that I was an empty hole incapable of loving?

When he stood up, I looked away.

“I’m sorry, Olivia, for hurting you,” he said hoarsely and my heart heaved in my chest. Why was his voice so gentle? Why wasn’t he screaming at me? I was the one who did the hurting. It was me. My fault. My sin. My mess.

“You will never see me again after today.” He paused and his next words struck me so deeply I would never recover from them. “I will love again, Olivia, you will hurt forever. What you’ve done is…You are worthless because you make yourself that way. You will remember me every day for the rest of your life because I was the one and you threw me away.” And then he left.

Chapter Nineteen

Noah was waiting for me outside of the restaurant when my cab pulled up. Before I could reach for my purse, he pulled a bill from his wallet and handed it to the cabbie, motioning for him to keep the change.

It was a hundred euro.

“You look ravishing,” he says, kissing me on the cheek.

“Thank you,” I take the arm that he offers me and we float into the most charming restaurant I have ever seen.

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.”