“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.