He sighs. “Mr. Carini said that you would say that.”
“Then, why did you even bother asking?”
“Because I hoped you were smarter than the rest of them.” He releases his grip on my arm. “Your ride is waiting out front. I’ll escort you.”
He leads me out front, and the warm sun beats down on us. I don’t know what time it is, but I guess it’s eight, maybe nine o’clock, in the morning. The bastard left me in there for close to ten hours.
He opens the door to the black town car, and I climb in without a word. He slowly closes the door after climbing in next to me, and continues to stare at me as the driver begins to drive off without me saying a word of where I live, but of course, he already knows.
I’m angry, and my whole body aches with pain from the cold and lack of sleep. I want nothing but revenge. And that revenge is going to be sleeping with Arlo.
For a split second, the guard’s expression holds my attention. He looks like he just witnessed a death.
I smirk. Maybe he did because I sure as hell don’t feel like the same person.
I don’t want Arlo anymore because he’s the hot, mysterious man who has threesomes in his fancy mansion. I’m obsessed with Arlo because he tried to get rid of me by leaving me broken and helpless. I will never be that girl again. I plan on destroying him. The first step is getting him to fuck me because, for some reason, I think it would hurt him a lot more than it would hurt me. Make him fall for me. Then I’ll rip out his heart.
* * *
“What the hell happened to you?” Eden asks when I walk into our apartment.
“You don’t want to know,” I say, walking past her.
“Please tell me that it was some filthy sex thing that you and Arlo did in the woods, and now, he’s out of your system.”
I laugh. “Something like that.”
“Well, whatever it is, we’ll have to talk about it later. We needed to leave for class, like, five minutes ago, so get changed, and let’s go.”
I’m exhausted. I look down at my filthy dress. I touch my hair and feel the grease and oil from not having washed my hair, and I’m sure my mascara and eyeshadow are now smudged all over my face.
“I—”
“You are not skipping class. You are going to go wash your face and put your hair up in a ponytail while I go pick out some clothes for you. Got it?”
I nod and walk to the bathroom. I start trying to wash off the makeup that is now caked onto my face. Before I even finish half of my face, Eden is back with jeans, a T-shirt, and new underwear. She stands in the bathroom doorway, waiting for me to finish washing my face before thrusting the clothes into my hands.
“Put them on now.”
I get dressed, and then Eden basically drags me to class about five blocks away. We step into the lecture room that’s already filled with the thirty other study abroad students, and we end up taking the only two seats left in the back.
“Thank God Italians run on a much more relaxed schedule than we do in America,” Eden says. “It would’ve been so embarrassing to walk into a class that had already started.”
I give her a fake smile. She has no idea what being embarrassed really means.
An older gentleman with frazzled hair and tiny, rimmed glasses walks toward the front of the room. “Welcome, everyone. I hope you’ve been enjoying your time in Italy so far. I’m Professor Gianpaolo Tullio, and I’ll be teaching you everything I can while you’re here.”
The professor rambles for a little bit about the importance of art and history and what his areas of expertise are before he says, “But the best way I find to learn about art is to create it yourself.”
Several small moans can be heard throughout the room. There is a reason most of us are art history majors instead of artists.
He motions for us to stand up, so we do. Then, we follow him to another room where easels are set up throughout the room.
“Take a seat. We are going to work on two paintings. The first will be of an object, and the second will be of a person.”
I sigh. I’m a horrible painter. I’ve tried countless times, but it’s just not a skill I’ve ever learned to harness. I love art, and I love history. I would love to be able to contribute something meaningful to this world, but I realized that I would never be the kind of person who could paint, draw, or do anything artistic. I’m the kind of person who will study it and teach others how to use their gifts and learn from the past.
“Start by painting this beautiful bouquet of flowers.”