Sophie: Train day. Text me when seated. Not when boarding. Seated. I know you.
I smile.
Serena: Controlling.
Sophie: Observant.
Serena: Fine.
Sophie: Safe travels, beautiful menace.
I put the phone in my bag. Lucia is waiting at the front desk when I come down. My bill is printed, folded, and ready. The taxi waits outside because Lucia has clearly decided I cannot be trusted with time.
“You will come back,” she says as I sign.
It is not a question.
“Yes,” I say.
“Good. Next time, not three years.”
“I’ll try to be less neglectful.”
“Try harder than that,” Lucia says.
I take the receipt and slide it into my tote.
“Thank you for everything.”
“You are welcome,” she says.
“Eat well in Spain.”
“I intend to.”
She comes around the desk before I can reach for my suitcase. For one alarming second, I think she might hug me. Instead, she adjusts the luggage tag so it lies flat against the handle.
“There,” Lucia says. “Better.”
I look down at it, then back at her.
“Yes,” I say. “It is.”
The taxi ride to Roma Termini is all morning glare and traffic. The driver plays the radio low. A woman on a scooter passes us with a dog sitting between her feet as if this is a perfectly reasonable transportation arrangement. Men unload crates outside cafés. Tourists drag suitcases over stone with loud, uneven wheels. Rome keeps moving because leaving does not make you important to a city. It simply makes you one more person who has been briefly held and then released.
At the station, I find my platform, buy an espresso I do not need, and stand beneath the departure board while destinations flicker and settle overhead. Milan. Florence. Naples. Venice. Names becoming tracks, times, motion.
San Sebastián requires changes. Rome to Milan. Milan to Paris later. Then onward. The route is inefficient in the way European travel can be inefficient when you insist on trains because you like the honest progress of land beneath you. Airports erase distance too cleanly. Trains let you watch the leaving happen.
I board at 9:12 AM. My seat is by the window, as requested, facing forward, with a small table and enough room for the laptop. I slide my suitcase into the rack, place my tote beside me, and set the notebook on the table. The carriage smells like coffee, fabric, and metal warmed by morning sun. A man across the aisle is already asleep with his mouth open. I envy him slightly.
The train pulls out at 9:31 AM, one minute late, which feels restrained enough to forgive. Rome begins to move past the window. At first, the city holds on. Apartment blocks. Graffiti. Laundry. Walls. Stations. Brief flashes of people waiting on platforms with their faces turned toward other destinations. Then the edges loosen. The buildings thin. The light opens. The Italian countryside begins to appear in gold and green, rolling away beneath a sky so clear it looks almost polished.
My phone buzzes once as the train gathers speed. I look down. Ethan again.
Ethan: Please don’t shut me out like this.
I read it without opening the thread.
