“Caro…”
“Just hold me, Sebastian. Just hold me.”
She laid both her hands on my chest and leaned her cheek against my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around her, hugging tightly.
“I’m sorry,” I said for the millionth time. “I’m so sorry,” and I pressed a small kiss into her hair.
When I could bear to let her go, she looked up and gave me a quick smile. A real one.
“We’ll get there,” she said.
Pisa was slammed, getting high on festival fever. Music blared from every café and ristorante, competing with the street entertainers and musicians, and the streets were filled with people partying. If I’d been here a week ago, still resolutely single, I’d have joined them, drinking and flirting, until I found a piece of pussy to hook up with for the night. But not now: the only girl I wanted was riding behind me on my bike.
I found a parking lot filled with battered Fiats and old Renaults. It wasn’t the most secure place in the world, but it would have to do.
“Are you taking your camera?” I suggested to Caro.
“Might as well,” she said, flinging it loosely over one, slim shoulder. “Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to sell a travelogue of biking through Italy.”
I was definitely on board with that idea. I’d much prefer Caro wrote articles from places that weren’t in a warzone. “It’s got to beat reporting from shitty military camps in fucked up countries.”
She shrugged, and I could tell that if I pushed her on the subject of her work, we’d be fighting again. But I really didn’t get it. I’d met foreign correspondents in Iraq and Afghanistan: they were a bunch of hard-drinking adrenaline junkies. I also knew guys who made a nice pile of extra cash by passing low-value info to journos who were hoping to get the next scoop. Yeah, I was glad that they reported to the people back home, because the sooner this fucked up war came to an end and we pulled out, the better. But the reporters I’d met—much like that scary British woman back in Geneva—they weren’t happy unless they were in the heat of the front line: total fucking bullet magnets. Caro wasn’t like that.
Holding in a sigh and biting back further comments¸ we walked into the city to explore.
Leaning tower. Check.
Bunch of old buildings. Check.
More old buildings. Check. Yawn.
Even more old buildings. Fuck me.
After what felt like half a lifetime, I was seriously done with seeing anymore old ruins or piles of rubble. I didn’t care if they were built by the Romans, the Italians or the fucking Egyptians. And I was so hungry, I was ready to chew my arm off.
Caro had been mostly silent, but taking photo after photo of everything we saw. Well, I guess she saw more in it than I did: still a bunch of fucking bricks.
“A penny for your thoughts,” I asked.
“I was just thinking about Papa—wondering if he ever came here.”
It explained why she’d been so quiet. At least she wasn’t still pissed at me. Well, not as much.
“I really loved your dad, Caro,” I admitted, thinking back to the guy with a crazy mustache who played with me and talked to me, and taught me more about the world than my asswipe of a father. “I was kinda jealous of you when I was a kid—I wanted so badly to have a dad like him, not the sack of shit I was saddled with.”
“Do you … keep up with your parents at all?”
That’s a hell no!
“Last time I saw the old bastard was at my graduation from boot camp.”
“Oh,” she said, sounding surprised, “that was … nice of him.”
I stared at her incredulously. I thought she knew what a mean shit my dad was.
“Are you fucking kidding me? He only did it because he knew it would piss me off to have to salute him.”
“Oh, right,” she said, frowning. What about Estelle?”
I shrugged. “She’s still in San Diego. Ches sees her around now and again. He banned her from the country club—drinking. They got divorced a few years back. Dad shacked up with some stripper. I don’t really know. What about your mom? Do you see her?”
She shook her head. “No, we’re not in touch. I know she’s living in a retirement village in Florida, but that’s all.”
I didn’t know anything about Caro’s mom—she’d never visited when her dad came to San Diego, so I hadn’t met her.
“Why aren’t you in touch? She couldn’t have been as bad as my mom.”
“Don’t be too sure about that,” Caro grimaced.
“What did she do?”
“She didn’t do anything, Sebastian. That’s the point. When I … when I left David, she told me I’d made my bed so now I could lie in it. She didn’t want anything to do with me. Wouldn’t lend me a red cent to help out when I went to New York. She wouldn’t even send me any photographs of Papa. I only have a couple of old pictures of him…”
Her words trailed off, and I automatically went to pull her in for a hug, but she resisted me without even being aware of it. I shoved my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t be tempted to touch her again. It was fucking choking me
“Do you see anything of him … David?” I grit out the name of her ex-husband, managing not to spit on the street as I said it.
“No. We had to correspond over the divorce papers, but that’s all. I believe he stayed in the Navy. You said you tried to see him … when was that?”
Really didn’t want to talk about it. I sighed, looking up at her expectant face.
“About four months after you left. It was killing me not knowing how you were, or where you were, or how to get in touch with you. Dad had already trashed my computer and deleted all my email accounts before I went to live with Mitch and Shirley. I didn’t even think the bastard knew how to do that stuff. Took my cell off me and smashed that, as well. Anyway, I was getting pretty desperate, so I went to your old house—but it was a waste of time. The asshole yelled at me that I’d ruined his marriage; I told him he didn’t deserve you and was a bastard for the way he’d treated you. He threatened to call the police. That was it.”
She looked so sad, that my ever-present anger began to boil over.
“You don’t feel sorry for him do you, Caro?” I snapped.
“A little. He just married the wrong woman, but he wasn’t a bad man.” The hell he wasn’t! “But you didn’t ruin my marriage: David and I managed to do that all by ourselves. You … freed me.”
It took a second for her words to sink in. She thought I’d freed her? Thank God.
“Please let me hold you, Caro,” I begged. “It’s driving me crazy that you won’t let me touch you.”
I reached out again, but she stepped away from me. Again.
“Just … just give me some time, Sebastian. I don’t deal with rejection well.”
Her words stunned me. “Is that how you see it? That I rejected you.”
She stared at me disbelievingly. “Of course. There’s no other way to see it.”
I ran my hands over my hair in frustration. Why couldn’t she see how wrong she was? That my anger came from fear—fear that she’d realize I wasn’t worth the effort, and leave me for a second time, a final time.
“Fuck, Caro! Last night was about my shit, not about you. Don’t you see that?”
“No, I don’t.” she said, shaking her head. “Not really. But I don’t want to go over that again. I’m trying to put it behind us … I just need time.”
“Okay,” I sighed. But it wasn’t okay. It really wasn’t.
“Do you want to go find somewhere to eat?” she asked, making an effort to lighten the mood, I guess.
“Yeah, I was hoping you’d say that. Do you feel like Italian?”
She raised her eyebrows, a small smile hovering on her lips.
“Oh, very funny. You should be on ‘Saturday Night Live’.”
We wandered through the crowded streets, checking out some of the cafés and ristorantes.
“What about that place over there because…?” she started to ask.