When in Rome...Break His Heart

by Lena Mae Hill

  “What about your classes? And…your plane ticket?”

  “I’m not taking more classes this summer. And I could change my flight.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “I thought…I mean, do you want me to stay?”

  “If you want to stay, stay,” he said. “It’s not my decision.”

  “Oh.” She sat back and sipped the beer, ignoring the urge to gag at the bitter scorch of bubbles on her tongue. “I thought you’d want me to. You could take me back to the Opera like you promised.”

  “Yes, that was a wild night,” he said, his full lips twisting into a smile. “I’m sure we could have a good time if you stayed for another month. Kristina is staying, too?”

  Suddenly, it was all there staring her in the face. Enzo was telling her exactly what she’d get, just like he always told her exactly what he wanted. He wasn’t playing games. He never had. He told her exactly what he was willing to give her, what to expect from him and what he expected of her. He’d told her exactly who he wanted, and she’d become that person. The funny thing was, she’d been trying not to be too accommodating to Weston, and without even noticing, she’d been so accommodating to Enzo that she wasn’t even herself with him. Weston never told her who to be. He’d just accepted her exactly how she was.

  Maggie set her beer on the coffee table. “I think I need some air,” she said. “I’m going to walk back to the tram stop.”

  “Are you sure you don’t have time for a little more fun?” he asked, hooking his finger through the belt loop of her shorts. “A little preview of the next month?”

  Yeah, little is what the preview would be. Two minutes, probably.

  “It’s really hot in here,” Maggie said, tugging at his hand. “Some other time.”

  He looked up at her, and when their eyes met, she knew that he didn’t believe it. A silent understanding settled between them. He didn’t want her to stay longer. He didn’t want her. She couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid. This whole time, she’d thought he was so into her, was possibly in love with her. But he’d just wanted to sleep with her. Or maybe any American would do. He probably thought they were all sluts.

  Even if he didn’t, he certainly didn’t want to date her or have a future with her. All along, she’d known he wasn’t the kind of man she wanted to marry. But she’d thought she was the kind of girl he’d want to marry. That was what had drawn her. The way he looked at her. But it was all an act. She could see that now. He had wanted her because she was on vacation, because nothing could come of it. That had never been an obstacle for him—it had been the selling point.

  “Goodbye, Enzo.”

  She wanted it to be an epic goodbye, her walking off into the sunset with him staring after her with great longing in his eyes. She wanted to keep believing that he would cherish their memories together and think of her for years to come, with a bittersweet smile on his face and a faraway look in his eyes.

  But they’d never had that kind of relationship. They’d never had a relationship at all.

  Enzo belched, a loud, wet sound that echoed through the apartment. “I’ll call you later, my sexy and hot American girl,” he called after her. When she turned to close the door, he was picking up her beer to finish it off.

  Outside, she walked through the muggy heat of the July evening. Cars and taxis passed in a blur, leaving the stink of diesel and exhaust. She didn’t want to cry in the street, like she had when she broke up with Weston. She just felt empty. Enzo had dumped her. After all the times she’d sworn she was going to dump him and he’d convinced her to stay, now he’d dumped her.

  When Kristina got dumped, she always cried and railed against the guy. He was the biggest asshole that ever lived, she was going to make him sorry he’d messed with her. But Maggie didn’t feel any of that. Maybe you had to really care about someone when you were together to really care when you weren’t. Never in a million years would she have believed she’d be the kind of girl who slept with a guy she didn’t love deeply. But she had. Maybe she was the stereotypical American Enzo thought she was.

  But she didn’t think she was. She was something else. Unbelievably, incredibly stupid. The moment she’d left Weston, she’d lost sight of everything. Who he was—a guy who would always be there, steady and stable, reliably reliable. Of course he’d planned to marry her. If he hadn’t, he would have said something. It all made so much sense to him, everything was so rational. He never second guessed her. Or himself. Everything was right there, laid out in logical order in his mind. She should have asked instead of trying to manipulate him into doing something. Of course she should have. With Weston, asking outright was always the best way. She knew that.

  So why hadn’t she?

  Maybe she’d lost sight of who she was, too. Instead of being practical and not putting the stress of planning a wedding on her senior year, she’d gone all bridezilla and wanted a ring right now. She’d gotten tired of waiting, and she’d started finding reasons she shouldn’t wait, seeing all his flaws instead of the millions of great things about him. Things like his straightforward manner, and how open and honest he always was. Instead, she’d chosen a guy who made drama out of nothing.

  And it hadn’t gotten her what she wanted in the end. Instead, it had erased the seven years of trust between her and Weston, all because she’d tried to force his hand instead of waiting for him to ask for hers.

  Now here she was, alone in Rome for her last week, with nothing to stay for and nothing to go home to.

  The last week passed in a blur. Maggie stayed in and studied, making sure to go above and beyond for her final paper about how the marketplace culture of the Roman Forums was alive and thriving today online. They only had two papers to turn in for the summer, and she’d botched the first one because she’d been so consumed with making sure Enzo and his friends liked her. She still wasn’t sure she’d get an A in every class, despite her extra effort on the final paper. Her second B ever, and all for nothing.

  How many times had she said that same thing about Weston this summer—that their time together was all for nothing? If he didn’t propose, did that erase their seven years together? She’d been so impatient, so ungrateful. Even now, when they’d broken up, she could see that those seven years hadn’t been for nothing. She’d gotten to spend them with the love of her life. And instead of focusing on that and enjoying the moment, she’d wasted their time together being consumed with the future. Just like she’d told Rory that day in the Vatican. She’d been so busy pointing the lens of her ambitions and focusing in on the end goal that she’d missed the beauty around her. Weston hadn’t taken her for granted. She had.

  Kristina went out with Armani a few times, and the girls went out together a couple more times, but Maggie didn’t join them.

  “You’re going to regret it,” Kristina warned. “Sitting around studying when you’re in Rome? Come on, get out and enjoy it. Soak up the city while you can. That’s more important than a paper.”

  But Maggie didn’t want to go out and party. She’d never been that type, like Cynthia and Kristina. She knew that now. And she had enough regrets that summer. If anything, going out would only give her more to regret. Instead, she went to a different museum every day and studied at night while the others went out. She knew what was important to her, and soaking up Italian club culture was not it. Tavern anthropology was not her major.

  Finally, she turned in her paper to Professor McClain and took her final in Professor Cucci’s class, and they were done. The whole class had a big Goodbye, Rome! party. Maggie went to that, since it was more of a goodbye to everyone than a party. Afterwards, though, a lot of people from her class were going out to a bar, including all her friends.

  “Come on, just one more night,” Kristina pleaded. “For me? You won’t see me for a couple months.”

  Maggie sighed. “Is Enzo going to be there?”

  “I can make that happen,” Kristina said, wiggling her eyebrows and grinning that nutty
grin that Maggie had to admit she would miss when she went home and Kristina stayed in Rome.

  “Please, don’t,” Maggie said quickly. Their odd, unfinished goodbye was the right ending for their odd, ill-defined relationship. She didn’t want to open herself up to uncertainties the night before she left for good. She’d never see him again, and she was fine with that.

  “You sure?” Kristina asked, tugging on Maggie’s sleeve. “One last night of passion with your Italian stallion?”

  “I don’t want to see him.”

  “You little heartbreaker,” Kristina teased. “Now come on, I’ll lend you my Italian stallion for a dance.”

  They didn’t go to a club, though, just a bar. Lots of people from their classes were there, along with a few friends they had made in their six weeks in Rome. Maggie sat sipping sangria and talking to Rory.

  “I haven’t seen you around this week,” Rory said, pushing up her huge glasses. “Kristina said you took it hard when you and Enzo broke up.”

  “I’m good, actually,” Maggie said. “It looks like you are, too.” She nodded at Ned, who was deep in conversation with Nick and Armani.

  “Yeah,” Rory said, her face coloring as a little irrepressible smile twitched on her lips.

  “What’s that about?” Kristina broke in, elbowing Rory.

  “You’re the one who told me you should always do what you’re afraid to do.”

  Kristina hooted with laughter. “So you finally did Ned?”

  Do what you’re afraid to do. Eleanor Roosevelt had agreed with that. She said to do something scary every day. Maggie never did anything scary—or she hadn’t before their trip. She wasn’t sure Eleanor was right on that one. All it had gotten Maggie was dumped by two different guys in the same month.

  “Why is your face so sad?” Armani asked.

  “Oh, sorry,” Maggie said, letting out a little laugh. She hadn’t noticed him turning away from his conversation with the guys.

  “You can feel what you feel,” Armani said. “I only ask why. Not to change it.”

  Maggie opened her mouth to say she was fine, but then she thought again of Eleanor. Maybe something scary didn’t have to be dumping your boyfriend of seven years and going to a stranger’s apartment. Maybe it could just be admitting you weren’t fine, even if it made the person asking uncomfortable.

  “I was just thinking about leaving,” Maggie said. “And how this summer didn’t turn out the way I thought it would.”

  “I am sorry about my friend,” Armani said. “He’s an ass.”

  Maggie laughed. “No, it’s not him.”

  “I hope you have made some good memories to take home with you, too.”

  “I did,” she said. “I’m sure I did.”

  On the flight home, Maggie mused and slept, listened to music, and tried to imagine every possible scenario that could happen between her and Weston. Her favorite was imagining him at the airport, waiting for her. He’d drop down onto one knee and present her with a ring, tell her he’d missed her and realized he couldn’t live without her.

  But that wouldn’t happen. She’d already asked Cynthia for a ride home from the airport, since Weston no longer had an obligation to come get her.

  “How you holding up?” she asked Cynthia, who was about to go home and face her own mistakes. She hadn’t gone home for her father’s funeral.

  “I’m good,” Cynthia said, shifting in the narrow airplane seat. “Trying not to think about reality setting in again.”

  “It really does feel like that, doesn’t it?” Maggie asked. “I think I got too caught up in that. Like it didn’t count because we were in Rome.”

  “Exactly,” Cynthia said. “Too bad we all couldn’t stay, like Kristina.”

  “Not me,” Maggie said. “I’m ready to go home. I keep imagining what I’ll say to Weston, but I’m sure whatever I say, he won’t say what I want him to.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cynthia said. “That does suck. But…I mean, why do you want to get married so bad, anyway?”

  “Because,” Maggie said. “It’s what you do. Don’t you want to?”

  “Well, yeah,” Cynthia said. “Someday. But in, like, ten years. Not now.”

  “But I’ve been with Weston seven years already. By the time we get married, it might be ten years.”

  “You started dating him when you were so young, though. You’re only twenty-one. What’s the rush?”

  “There’s not a rush, exactly,” Maggie said. “Or maybe there was. But there shouldn’t have been. It didn’t start out like that. It was just that we’d already found the person we wanted to be with for the rest of our lives. We knew we were going to get married, anyway, so what’s the point in waiting?”

  “Yeah, but marriage isn’t just dating forever,” Cynthia said. “It’s different. Maybe the point of waiting is just to make sure you’re ready. People change.”

  “I don’t think we’ll change that much. We are who we are.”

  “Well, you’re probably a lot more mature than me,” Cynthia said, smiling. “But I know I’m not going to be ready anytime soon. I mean, the next step is having kids. Are you really ready for your life to be all about someone else? I still want my life to be all about me.”

  “We weren’t going to have kids for another ten years,” Maggie said. “That way, we can be selfish for a while, until we’re ready to put a kid first.”

  “Even just being married, you have to put the other person first. Or at least your marriage. You always have to think about what’s best for the two of you, as a couple, and not just you.”

  “You’re right,” Maggie said after a pause. “Maybe I’m not ready. I obviously wasn’t thinking about what was best for Weston when I ran off with Enzo. Or what was best for us, not just me.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t trying to say you’re not ready,” Cynthia said, biting at a hangnail. “I just meant me, personally. I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad.”

  “You didn’t,” Maggie said. “I just got so caught up in wanting a ring, maybe I didn’t think it all the way through. I wasn’t thinking about us at all.”

  Cynthia patted her knee and gave her a sympathetic smile. “My mom always says, if you learn from it, it isn’t a mistake.”

  Maggie didn’t want to think of it that way. If she’d learned from it, that meant that she’d do something differently next time. And that meant it was really over with Weston. She’d have to find someone new, have to date again. If her relationship with Enzo had taught her anything, it was that she had no idea how the whole dating thing worked. After all, she’d been with the same guy since she was fourteen, practically a kid. Everything had fallen into place so easily back then.

  Their parents had been acquaintances before they went out. They lived in adjacent neighborhoods in North Little Rock, went to the same Methodist church, and played racquetball at the same club. Both she and Weston came from intact, solidly middle class families with one missing grandparent each, the allowable number of crazy uncles—one—and ambitious siblings to create a healthy level of competition.

  But it wasn’t just rational. She still remembered the way her heart had raced when he’d come up to her at that middle school dance. She still remembered how nervous she’d been when he kissed her the first time, how she’d been shaking for an hour afterwards. She remembered the first time he whispered her loved her, on their first anniversary, when their parents still thought they were just cute kids.

  She remembered how, the next year, when their parents had sat them down together and told them they were getting too serious and they needed to focus on grades and not a high school romance—because face it, those never lasted—Weston had said, “With all due respect, I have to disagree. I’m going to marry this girl.” She remembered how furious and humiliated she’d been up until that moment, and how she’d never loved him more than right then, when he’d stood up for her—for them—when she was too scared of disappointing her parents. She’d been a little bit in awe of
him ever since.

  Of course, she had bad memories, too, like the time they’d both gotten food poisoning on a trip to Six Flags, and they’d spent the whole weekend fighting over the bathroom in the hotel room. But those times seemed like meaningless sketches of memories now, the vague outlines of shapes seen through tracing paper. They could be anything. The mundane details of life, things that happened to everyone sooner or later.

  The only really terrible thing either of them had ever done to the other was what she had done this summer. Armani had said he hoped she’d made some good memories, too, but she hadn’t. She’d squabbled with her best friend and ruined her relationship. All the memories she’d made, she’d rather forget. But she couldn’t. This summer would be with her forever, the biggest mistake of her life. The summer when she’d lost the love of her life.

  Because that’s what it was, the film of contentment over all her memories with Weston, that blurred the bad memories into insignificant little miscues in their story. They’d had real love, built over all those years together. In all the memories, in the celebrations and misfortunes, the mishaps and successes, love was there. Love had always been there, simple, sweet, and kind, as stark a fact as the existence of the sun.

  How had she mistaken that for complacency on his part? Why had she let herself believe Weston was taking her for granted, biding his time until something better came along? She knew him better than that. Her obsessive need to control everything, to plan and schedule and map out everything, had overtaken her sense at last, and she’d forgotten that he was his own person, independent of her perception of what he should do.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  At last, they arrived back in Arkansas, collected their luggage from the overhead bins, and exited the aircraft. They made their way up the stuffy gangplank to the cool airport and back through the terminal. Cynthia and Nick were holding hands, and she was chattering away about seeing her mom again. Maggie trailed behind, very aware of being relegated to third-wheel status.