A Little Too Far (12 page)

“Good night,” I say. But as I close the door behind him I think to myself, nothing about a few weeks sounds short.

It’s midnight, and I’m just climbing in bed after finishing my homework when the phone vibrates on my nightstand. I pick it up and look at the text.

Trent.

My heart speeds up as I open it. It’s in response to the text I sent from the top of St. Peter’s.

You seriously went up there?

Yeah,
I text back.
It was amazing.

Looks like it
.

I wait for more, something about his call, but there’s nothing.

Did you get home okay last night?
I finally ask.

There’s a long pause.
Yeah.

Again, I wait in vain for more.

I was worried about you,
I coax.

Sorry.

Sorry? That’s it?

Did you mean it when you said you wanted me?
My shaking finger hovers over the
SEND
button.

My shaking finger still hovers over the
SEND
button.

My shaking finger hovers longer over the
SEND
button.

Then I delete the text.

Glad you’re okay. Night,
I text instead.

Night,
he texts back.

Chapter Twelve

T
HE
I
TALIANS DON’T
celebrate Thanksgiving. Go figure. But it’s all good because I spent the last three days in heaven (aka: Venice) on a class trip. I’m just starting to come down from my Venetian high as I sit in my funerary art class, not even caring that it’s Thanksgiving today, when my phone vibrates. I flip it out of my pocket and read Sam’s text.

Just got home from a totally hot date.

In class. Talk later,
I text back.

My phone vibrates again as I’m stuffing it back in my pocket.
You’re not even going to ask who?

Fine. Who?
I text back.

Your super hot stepbrother.

I’m going to throw up.
Talk later.

I shove my phone in my pocket and try to pretend I’m not hyperventilating as I do the math on my fingers. It’s almost noon here, so nine hours behind us . . . that means it’s six, five, four . . . three. It’s three in the morning there. She just got back from a date with Trent at three in the morning?

I’m definitely going to throw up.

I mean, it’s not like I’ve been sitting around pining for Trent. My classes and school trips and the tours with Alessandro and the kids have kept my mind occupied. Since my meltdown on the dome with Alessandro five weeks ago, I’ve felt better about the whole thing. I’m really trying to get over him. I include him in the group texts I send to Dad and Julie with pictures of the places I’ve been, but I rarely hear more back from him than the occasional,
cool.

Alessandro and I see each other every other Friday for our tours with the kids, but since that first tour, he’s e-mailed me at least once a week, and usually more, saying he has something to show me. He’s taken me to see frescoes and mosaics and sculptures tucked away in obscure churches around the city that I never would have found on my own, and we always end up at a café for espresso or gelato.

We talk about everything over espresso, including his past and mine. He makes me laugh, and he makes me feel smart—like I basically have my shit together, which we both know I don’t. But it’s nice that he lets me pretend. Just last week, he asked if my feelings for my stepbrother were waning. I said they were, and, at the time, I didn’t think I was lying.

But then I get this text, and my heart squeezes into a hard knot.

Damn.

I take out my phone and read through Sam’s texts again. She’s wanted to get her hooks into Trent since we were juniors in high school. Now she finally has. The irony is that, up until a few months ago, I would have been happy for her.

I look up, and everyone’s packing up and leaving, so Professor Bertolli must have dismissed us. I look at the blank page in my notebook and hope I didn’t miss anything important while I was obsessing. I scoop everything into my backpack and head out the door. I have two more classes today, and one is Venetian Art, where I know we’re going to talk about our trip. Under normal circumstances, I’d never consider ditching, but my brain is scrambled and my guts are in knots and I’d be useless anyway, so I start up the street toward home.

I glance into the pastry case as I pass the café where Abby and I met, and even the currant croissants don’t look good to me. But then through the window I see Abby. She’s sitting at a table in the back corner with Grant. My feet slow without my permission when I realize Abby’s crying. She rubs a forearm under her nose as Grant stands. He shrugs a backpack onto his shoulder and stuffs his hands in his pockets, then leans down and kisses the top of Abby’s head before moving in my direction.

I lower my head and start walking again until I’m sure he’s passed, then loop back to the door.

Abby’s still at the table, a napkin pressed to her face.

“Abby,” I say softly as I approach.

She stops sniffling but doesn’t lift her face from the napkin. “What?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have butted in,” I say, backing away a step.

She lifts her head and looks at me. Her eyes are red-rimmed, one of her neon blue contacts a little askew, and she’s got raccoon eyes from where her mascara has smudged. She pushes the chair Grant was just in toward me with her foot. “Sit.”

I slide into the seat and lower my backpack to the floor next to me. “What happened?”

She rolls her eyes, and the contact fixes itself. “I turned daft, that’s what.”

I’m not really sure what that means, but I can guess. “You and Grant . . . ?”

She nods. “The lot of us from our anthropology class went out clubbing a few weeks ago after our exam. We got pissed, and I brought him home and shagged him.” She looks up at me. “I only ever wanted his body, you know.”

I nod.

“But he’s crashed at my flat every night for the last two weeks and”— she grimaces and rubs a finger under her eyes, which only makes the mascara smudge worse—“I want more than just his body now. I told him I was in love with him.”

Well, that explains why I haven’t heard from her in a few weeks. I haven’t even seen her at school, which makes me wonder if they even got out of bed long enough to go to class. Now doesn’t seem like the time to ask, though. “But he’s still with his girlfriend?”

Her face pulls into a pained squint. “He says he won’t break up with her.”

“What did you think was going to happen when you both go home? I mean, you’ll be on different continents in a few months, right?”

“Do you think my heart gives a shit about that?” she spits.

“Sorry, I just mean . . . it’s hard to keep things going long-distance.” All my experience tells me it bites balls. Either you think everything’s great when it’s not, like with Rick, or you know everything sucks, and you do nothing but agonize over it, like with Trent. I scoot my chair closer and loop an arm around her back. “Shit, Abby. This really blows.”

She leans her head on my shoulder. “I’ve shagged dozens of guys, but I’ve never been in love before.”

There’s no easy answer. There’s nothing reassuring I can say to her that’s not a lie. So the server brings us espresso, and we just sit in silence. At some point we change from espresso to wine, which seems to do more to improve Abby’s mood.

“You should spend the weekend at my flat,” she says, sipping her second glass. “We can buy junk food and watch Italian porn.”

“As appealing as that sounds,” I say, “I’m going to Santa Maria Maggiore with Alessandro Saturday.”

She rolls her eyes. “If the man weren’t wearing a white collar, I’d swear there was something going on between you two.”

“Well, he is, and there’s not.”

“So, Sunday?” she asks. “We can find porn with nuns and a priest and have a Mass of our own.”

“I’ll come over Sunday, but no porn. I’ll bring a couple movies and junk food.” My apartment doesn’t have a TV, and I don’t really miss it, but a movie sounds like fun. “So . . . are you going to be okay?”

She breathes deep. “I’d be better if Grant contracted a painful, flesh-eating disease.”

I grimace. “Sorry, can’t help you there.”

She drains the last of her wine. “Yeah. I’m good.”

I sip my wine and push back from the table. “Okay . . . well . . . I should head home, but I’ll see you Sunday.”

“Don’t forget the porn!” she calls after me, as I move toward the exit. A group of guys I recognize from school sitting near the door look up at me and grin.

I shrug at them and step onto the sidewalk. It’s dusk, and the air is getting cooler by the second. The sky is hung with low, gray clouds, but, thankfully, it’s not raining yet. I walk fast to keep from freezing, and also to beat the rain, and my mind wanders back to my own problems.

When I wasn’t consoling Abby, or watching her drown her sorrows, I was thinking about Trent and Sam. I sat through my classes with my muscles bunched and my stomach in knots. And now, now, with nothing to distract my thoughts, all the tension comes back.

By the time I get to my apartment, I’m in physical pain. I want to call Sam. I
need
to call Sam. But it’s only six here, which means it’s nine in the morning there. If I call now and wake her, she’ll know something’s up.

Instead, I go to the kitchen and look for something to pull together for dinner. Nothing looks good, and I finally end up making a cup of tea and getting ready for bed. I finish in the bathroom and grab Alessandro’s Vatican Museum book and my sketchpad on the way to my bedroom because I had another idea I want to try out for the kids. I strip and climb into bed, propping the pillows behind me on the headboard, then flip to the sculpture section of the book and look over some of the pieces.

I start sketching the Colonna Venus, but as my hand works, so does my mind.

If Trent and Sam are together now, how am I going to handle going home for winter break? I’m on an airplane in three weeks. Is that long enough for the whole thing to sink in, so I don’t flip when I see them together?

I can do this.

I can.

I have to.

I breathe deep and set down my sketchpad.

It’s been three months since I’ve seen him. This should be getting easier, but it’s not. I have to decide if what I feel for Trent is love or just lust. Because if it’s just lust, I can’t risk destroying our family over sex.

But if it’s love . . .

If I’m in love with Trent, could I tell him? If I did, then what? If by some remote chance he loves me too, which is doubtful considering his current behavior, we’d still never be able to follow through. What would people think? I can just imagine the rumor mill on this one. It would go something like: They’ve been having sex since their parents got married when they were five. Remember back in sixth grade when she gained all that weight and went away to summer camp? She was pregnant with Trent’s two-headed love child and she had it in the woods and they chained it up in a cave so no one would ever find out. Now it’s Gollum.

We could never tell. Dad and Julie would be mortified because, let’s face it, they’d probably assume it had been going on for a while too. Their friends would gossip, they’d be ostracized from their social groups. Everywhere they went, people would talk about their incestuous kids behind their backs.

I’m just on the edge of a panic attack . . . at that place I can still stop it if I just calm down. Air. That will help. I stand and push my window open, leaning out and gulping the cold air.

The catcall from below catches my attention and I look down into the street. The boy, the one who wanted to sleep with me, then peed in my door, is looking up at me. And that’s when I remember I’m naked. I reach for the curtain and pull it around me.

“Facciamo ballare il tuo letto stanotte, gnocca!” he calls up to me. My eyes widen as he unzips his pants and pulls out his junk. And when I look up, the wrinkled old woman is on her balcony, wrapped in a crocheted throw, staring at me. Her eyes narrow, and she tsks me. Three shakes of her finger and three clucks from her mouth that echo off the walls. One, two, three.

“Oh, shut up, Grandma Moses. I’m having a bad day,” I growl.

Despite Grandma Moses and Horny Boy, I don’t leave the window. The fresh, cold air helps to calm my nerves. I stand here until I can breathe. When I reach for the window to pull it closed, I look down and find Horny Boy peeing in my doorway again.

Just shoot me.

I climb back into bed and look at my clock. Seven thirty. So that means it’s . . . twelve, eleven, ten. It’s ten thirty in the morning there. Not too early to call and not be suspicious. I pick up my phone and dial Sam.

“What?” she says when she picks up. Yep, I woke her.

“So, tell me about this hot date.” I almost pull off casual.

“Sleeping. Call later,” she grumbles.

“I can’t call later. I’m going to bed. It’s late here,” I lie, knowing she’s not going to expend the energy to do the math.

I hear her heave a sigh, then the rustling of sheets. “Okay. Fine. Trent is a fucking god, and I’m totally in love with him. ’Night.”

“No!” I yell, afraid she’s going to disconnect, but then I rein myself back. “I mean . . . you always expect details from me, so . . .”

“You don’t think it would be a little weird to know details of your stepbrother’s sex life?”

At the word “sex,” my stomach loops, and I feel sick. “Trent and I talk about everything.” . . . And I’m already intimately acquainted with certain aspects of his sex life.

“I don’t know, Lex. I’m not sure he’d tell you
this.
” She’s starting to wake up. I can tell by the lascivious lilt to her voice.

That panic attack is threatening again, and I move back to the window, careful this time to stay behind the curtain. “What happened to ‘hard to get’?”

“We are so far past that. We’ve moved into the can’t-get-enough phase of our relationship.”

I lean out the window, afraid I’m going to throw up, and Grandma Moses and Horny Boy are gone, thank God. “So you guys are . . . ?”

“We haven’t done the deed, if that’s what you’re asking, but it’s only a matter of time.”

My relieved breath blusters in my ear through the phone, and I pull it away from my mouth. They haven’t slept together . . . yet. Small prayer answered.

“So, when do you come home for Christmas?” she asks.

“Um . . . my flight’s on the eighteenth.”

“I’ll be home on the twenty-first, and the first place I’m heading is your house.”

“Great,” I say, feeling anything but. “Can’t wait to see you.”

“Well, maybe if your uber-hot stepbrother lets me up for air, you will.” And there’s the tone again.

“All right . . . well . . . I’m going to bed, so talk soon.”

“ ’Night, bitch.”

“ ’Morning, bitch.”

I disconnect and close my window, then crawl into bed and flick off the lights. There’s still time to tell him I love him. I could do it.

I could.

But I won’t.