"You're really staying in Italy just for me?" I said.

"Not 'just' for you. Only for you. There's a difference, don't you see?" He said, his thumbs sweeping beneath my eyes, collecting any more tears that tried tumbling their way to freedom.

Every other part of my life shrank, became less important. Trivial, even.

I was just a girl who loved a boy. A boy who, incredibly, loved me back even though he knew about my faults and my baggage. But wasn't that one of the definitions of love, someone who not only didn't care that you had baggage, but who also helped you to shoulder it?

I laughed, unable to express my relief, my shock and incredulity and joy in any other way. It was catching, it seemed, because Liam laughed, too.

We laughed so much that the people sat in the group of chairs on the other side of the aisle kept glancing our way.

Liam didn't move back to his chair across from me, apparently unwilling to let go of my hand.

And then I looked up through the window. "Hey, is that it?"

A city astride a river started speeding towards us, the buildings growing in scale with each breath I took. I recognized the enormous home of the ancient and extinct Medici family and knew.

"Welcome to Florence," Liam said.

We'd arrived in the historic city, but Liam and I had arrived at a destination I'd never let myself dream of reaching.

Chapter 19

Sometimes I wonder just how magical Florence really was. When we stepped off the train and Liam led me to a waiting cab, I wondered if it wasn't a dream. A fantasy come to life.

The energy of life suffused every fiber of me. I exuded it from every pore. The old buildings and the people who lived in them seemed imbued with that same energy, too. Had it been there all along? Was it everywhere?

Was it something you could only see when new love, its fire so hot and white you thought it could never dim, had you in its clutches?

There was also a sense of urgency. As though tomorrow might be too late. Too late to enjoy Liam's touch, to enjoy all the sights and sounds and experiences that the world, that Florence, had to offer.

Even our cab driver, an older gentleman whose hair had whitened almost everywhere, couldn't help grinning when he glanced back at us. "Ah, to be young and happy," he said.

That might have been it, I thought. It was a moment of true happiness for us. No grey clouds allowed in our blue skies. Untainted by worry or anxiety or fear.

The Uffizi was a huge building that reared up right along the Arno River, which itself cut through Florence. Uffizi is literally "Offices" in Italian. The building had belonged to the Medici and had been converted into one of the first true public museums in Europe after the downfall of the old family.

It was massive, and seemed to consist of thousands of arches and windows. We entered the courtyard hand in hand and right away I felt the eyes of the many beautiful statues in their sconces along the wall watching us.

The courtyard is said to resemble an idealized street. It did. At one end, the one from which we'd entered, you had the archways leading directly to the river. At the other side the ancient medieval palace called Palazzo Vecchio towered into the air.

A covered walkway took up part of the ground level of each side of the Uffizi, columns marching alongside them.

"They have a replica of the David standing out front, if you'd like to see," Liam said, nodding towards the fortress. Even from this distance, I could already see the David. The statue was tall enough to dwarf the people walking up the stairs around him.

"Let's go into the museum," I said, impatient to see the incredible array of artwork stored within.

Feeling the way I did, the artwork within took on an ethereal quality.

The happier I became, the happier Liam became. We rushed through the wings of the museum, both of us desperate to see everything, to take everything in at once.

We ran up a grand staircase, the rails on either side broader than both of my hands set side by side and polished to a high smoothness. At the top of these stairs the busts of many ancient figures watched us impassively.

"You have to wonder what they've seen with the passing of the centuries," Liam said, catching me up before I could go any further. He didn't look at any face but mine, however.

"And what is it you see?" I said, noticing my reflection in his eyes.

"Exactly what I've been looking for my whole life."

He kissed me at the top of the stairs, other museum patrons having to walk around us.

Soon we came to the paintings. So many of them, all masterpieces. They had Botticelli’s Adoration of the Magi, as well as Da Vinci's painting of the same name.

There were Rembrandts, Titians, Caravaggios. Those and more. All original. I could have died happy there that day.

The paintings seemed like living things, the colors vibrant, the characters depicted in them in momentary pauses. As though as soon as I looked away they might begin to move.

I'd never experienced the passion that must have gone into their creation as viscerally as I did that day, there with Liam. At its root, passion means suffering. And a great deal of suffering must have gone into making them.

That must also have been why it hurt, deep inside, to be there with Liam. Love hurt. It hurt so good I hoped to never be without that particular pain.

"Everything okay?" Liam said. We stood in front of a roped off Da Vinci sketch depicting a flying machine, and it made me remember that day Liam had taken me floating over Rome in a hot air balloon.

"Better than okay. So much better," I replied. "I guess I keep thinking about how if I hadn't met you that night, I'd probably be back home in St. Louis right now, completely unaware of what I was missing here. Or maybe being aware of it and not caring." That seemed the bigger crime to me, knowing that these things were here to see and choosing to not see them, even though I'd been so close.

"I'd be in an office," Liam said, "New York, maybe. Or London. Thinking about how even though it looked like I have everything that it still felt like I had nothing. It's funny how lonely it can be."

"Then I suppose it's a good thing we bumped into each other that night. It looks like we both needed some saving," I said. If I closed my eyes I could recall the wind moving through my hair and how the city had lit up beneath the basket of the balloon as the sun dipped.

"No argument from me," Liam replied.

"It was like we were both blind," I said, leaning over the ropes to get a better look at the sketching technique Da Vinci used, "So much happening right in front of our eyes that we just couldn't see."

Despite how much we both wanted to stay, eventually we had to move on. The outside world began pressing in.

It happened when I saw a painting by Giulio Romano. That reminded me of the essay I'd written, which knocked over the dominoes of my memory in quick succession. The essay. The awful grade. Dr. Aretino, the reason for the awful grade.

"Can we go?" I said, turning away from the painting.

"Yes, of course," he replied.

He took me from the Uffizi, and I started moving towards the street to flag down a cab when he stopped me, clutching my elbow so that I couldn't get away. "What is it?"

"Over there," he said. Then he took me over to one of those partially closed in walkways at the ground level of the Uffizi.

A young Italian man sat on a three-legged stool, an easel with a large sketchpad attached to it in front of him, easily the size of a modest painting canvass. He had an intense look on his narrow face, and dark pencil dust smudged every one of his fingers.