By January I still hadn’t gone anywhere besides Venice. I had made several attempts but each time I disappointed myself in my inability to pull away, even for a weekend. The Sacrifice was leaving soon, to go skiing with her family in Switzerland, then to Rome for the spring. One night I came home tipsy and found her in bed reading. Once I managed to get out of my clothes and into my pajamas, I started jumping on the bed. She laughed. “What are you doing?”

I kept jumping, spinning around in midair and tapping the ceiling with my palms, until I fell onto her. We lay there staring at each other, giggling and breathing heavily. When the room stopped spinning I looked down at her mouth. I had observed it intently over the past months, watched it suck the tips of cigarettes, lick gelato, sip wine, kiss cheeks, kiss my cheeks. I could feel her staccato heartbeats as I inched closer to her face, her breaths coming at me in short puffs. By now we were both quivering, goose bumps lining the surfaces of our bare arms.

For a brief moment, the ambassador’s wife flashed through my mind. Within seconds, she was gone.

I pressed my cheek against the Sacrifice’s. My eyelashes fluttered against her cheekbone. I then reached up and pushed her bangs back with my hand, and kissed her forehead, pressing my mouth against it fully. Finally I pulled back, rolled off her, and faced the wall. I didn’t turn back around until I heard her breathing rhythmic sleep breaths.

A few days later, I accompanied her to the airport. We barely spoke during the bus ride or at the ticket counter. When it was time to go through security, she fumbled in her backpack and pulled out a neatly folded piece of paper.

“Bye,” she said, handing it to me. She turned and walked away.

I waited until I could no longer see her to open up the note. It was just one line. I’m tired of elephant shoe. I love you.

I stared at it for a while before crumpling it up and putting it in my pocket. On the bus ride home, I sat against the window and watched cars whip by on the autostrada. When I got back I noticed that she’d forgotten to pack her Smurf pillowcase. I lay down and buried my face in it. Hours later I was still lying there when I heard, “Hey! Get up!”

Agos was standing in the doorway, though I didn’t turn to look at her. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go to Giubbe Rosse.”

“I don’t feel like it.”

She sighed. “You’re pathetic. You know that, right? It’s draining.”

I nodded, keeping my cheek pressed to the pillow. Agos then lay beside me and tossed an arm across my back. “Completely pathetic, I swear.”