P.S. If you’re wondering who’s watching Duke while I’m on this trip, you should know it’s my dad. We’re not back to how we used to be, maybe we never will be, but I’m trying. I won’t break my promise to you. If you take one thing away from this letter and forget the rest, let it be that.
Great, so someone sprinkled water all over my letter. No wait, that’s me crying. Again.
I’m sad and relieved and so homesick for Ryan that I could die, and how dare he send this to me! But Ryan also said he was on a trip.Wait. Is he here?
I bolt for Paolo’s hut a second later. I’ve never run track a day in my life but now I’m thinking that maybe I should have.
“Paolo!” I yell, my hair falling in disarray in front of my face as I fling myself onto the reception desk.
He’s waiting for me and smiling, resting his chin on his fist as he leans forward on the counter.
“He told me you come here yelling. He knows you very well.”
“He who?” I ask, out of breath. “Was this hand-delivered?”
“Si. Signore Ryan came this morning. He ask for you, he wait a few hours, he give me the package, then he go.”
“He go?” I all but shriek. “You mean he’s gone gone? Is he coming back?”
I’ve never seen Paolo look so smug as he does in this moment, reaching into the left breast pocket of his gray blazer. He pulls out an envelope and hands it to me. “He leave this for you.”
I snatch the letter ungracefully out of his hand.“Grazie.”
“Prego.”
I step away and tear the envelope open, pulling out the folded sheet of paper and I once again see Ryan’s handwriting.
Kara,
To answer the questions you’re probably asking: Yes, I flew over twelve hours to deliver this letter and the journal. Yes, I am now flying over fourteen hours to get back home. No, I did not take anything on the plane to make it easier for me. Yes, I got sick. A lot. And yes, I would fly this trip a million times over if it meant we might be together again. I love you.
—Ryan
My hand with the note falls to my side and I don’t know where to turn or look or think. I just stand there, staring blankly ahead as my mind spins and spins like some sketchy carnival ride. I stand there for all of ten seconds until I’m once again charging at Paolo’s hut.
“When did he leave? Paolo, when did he leave?” My tone is demanding and almost volatile, and Paolo’s self-satisfied demeanor shifts on the spot.
“Non no so,”he quickly answers. He fumbles around with his cell phone on his desk until he gets a handle on it and checks the time. “Five minutes? Maybe ten?”
I don’t wait around to question him further. I turn on my heels and run out of the courtyard, heading in the direction of the busy intersection two blocks away. I run and run and I don’t loosen my death grip on the journal the whole way. Reaching the intersection, my lungs are on fire and my heart is pounding. I scan the area around me, looking up and down the street until I turn to the taxi stop across the road, on the other side of the intersection. And then my heart feels like it stops altogether.
Ryan.
I see him. He’s here. A quiet, elated laugh jumps from my throat and I bring my free hand up to cover my mouth. He’s totally different and exactly the same. Jeans and a T-shirt and his Hurricanes baseball cap, but I’m no longer gazing at him through rose-colored glasses. Maybe that’s the difference. Of course, I see the cowboy I perpetually want to jump, the guy who understands me—who understood me from the beginning and always wanted more—but I also see the man who offered me the world and then brought it crashing down all around me.
I take a step back, letting myself fade into the bustling crowd while keeping Ryan in my line of sight. He looks pale. Not even the Italian sun could cure his motion sickness completely. He’s next in line at the taxi stop and he readjusts the strap of his travel bag over his shoulder as another cab pulls up to the curb.
He’s going to leave.
Panic races through me and my feet pull me forward. All I have to do is call out his name. The intersection traffic is loud, but I could be louder. Call out his name and he stays—do nothing and he goes. I try to speak but my throat seems to close. I don’t know what’s right anymore.
He opens the back seat door and it’s like I’m watching a movie right before the cliffhanger resolution. I should be a lead character but I feel like a passive viewer. Ryan looks up over the car to the corner that’s parallel to where I’m standing. Is he looking for me? Hoping I’ll come tearing out through the crowd to ask him to stay?
I remain motionless, drowning in my own indecision. Maybe he’ll see me and I won’t have to choose anything. His eyes will land on mine and all our issues will melt away—won’t be anything more than a bad dream.
I wait and I look and I move forward a small step more, thinking that if it’s meant to be, he’ll see me. If it’s meant to be, he’ll find me.
But he doesn’t.
