Chapter 50
Fifty
Mark
Lexington is ten seconds from finding out that the pavilion she seems to care so much about isn’t on the blueprints, a fact I hid from her all day.
I tried to protect her from having to deal with that on her big day, but that’s about to backfire.
And instead of standing by her side, I’m walking through the displays of Fast and Furious, several famous spaghetti Westerns, and Mission: Impossible III, fighting off memories Zoe awoke in me, memories of what I lost and how much it wrecked me.
I don’t miss Zoe—she was all wrong for me in ways I couldn’t understand back then. But an echo of that pain tugged at my chest at the sight of her. A reminder of what it felt like to lose everything.
We never officially broke up. She left and I stayed, as simple as that.
Easiest thing in the world for an ocean to crack in half something you thought was permanent, to get on a plane and never look back.
I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to live with the results of both times it happened—my dad before I was born, and Zoe after I grew up.
I follow the flow of people perusing the displays, then stop in my tracks at the next movie, whose scenes are blown up on larger-than-life board mounts.
Roman Holiday.
Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck on a Vespa at the Colosseum. The two of them on the Spanish Steps. At the Trevi square. Eating gelato. Audrey Hepburn in her final moments in Rome, smiling at Gregory Peck while her eyes fill with tears and her mouth quivers with all the things she can’t say.
Gregory Peck, walking down the long hall alone, away from her, away from everything he foolishly hoped to keep.
Every snapshot is an echo of my week with Lexington, including the last one that hasn’t happened yet, but will.
You can’t fall in love with someone who lives somewhere else and expect a happily-ever-after.
It’s the Roman Holiday rule.
And fool that I am, I was about to put myself in the position to play that out again.