Chapter 9: Rome

The train from Barcelona to Rome takes fourteen hours.

Sush sleeps through most of it.

When she wakes, Italy is outside the window. Hills and vineyards and old stone buildings.

Rome is chaos.

The hostel is near Termini Station, in a building that smells like cigarettes and tomato sauce.

Sush is tired. Her body aches. She's been traveling for ten days, and she's starting to feel it.

But she goes out anyway.

She walks to the Colosseum. Stands outside and stares at the ancient stone.

She thinks about history. About the people who built this, who fought here, who died here.

She thinks about her own smallness. The way her problems — her job, her ex, her life — are nothing in the scope of time.

It should be comforting.

It's not.

That night, she meets a guy at the hostel bar.

His name is James. He's American, from New York, traveling for six months.

They talk. They drink. They go back to his room.

The sex is fine. Not great. Just fine.

Afterward, he asks, "You okay?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"You seem... distant."

She is distant.

She's been distant since Barcelona.

Since Marc asked her if she wanted her life.

"I'm fine," she says.

But she's not.

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The next day, she goes to the Vatican.

She's not religious, but she wants to see the Sistine Chapel.

The museum is crowded. Tourists everywhere, taking photos, talking too loud.

When she finally gets to the chapel, she stands in the middle of the room and looks up.

The ceiling is overwhelming. God reaching for Adam. The creation of the world.

She thinks about creation. About building a life.

About the fact that she's twenty-two and she doesn't know what she's building.

She leaves the Vatican feeling emptier than when she arrived.

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That night, she meets another guy.

This one is Italian. Older — maybe thirty. He buys her wine at a bar near the Trevi Fountain.

They don't talk much. He doesn't speak great English. She doesn't speak any Italian.

But they don't need words.

They go back to his place. A small apartment near the river.

The sex is rougher than she's used to. He pulls her hair. Spanks her. Talks to her in Italian — words she doesn't understand but can guess the meaning of.

It should scare her.

It doesn't.

She likes it.

She likes the way he takes control. The way she doesn't have to think, doesn't have to decide, just has to feel.

When she comes, it's sharp and sudden and almost painful.

Afterward, he lights a cigarette. Offers her one.

She's never smoked before.

She takes it.

The smoke burns her throat. She coughs.

He laughs.

She laughs too.

It's absurd. All of it. This trip, these men, this version of herself she's becoming.

But she doesn't want to stop.

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