"I'll be there."

"Good," he says. "And bring the girl with you."

The line goes dead before I can conjure up a response to that. Sighing, I just sit there, reveling in the silence for a moment, taking a moment of peace for myself. I clutch the phone in both hands, my elbows resting on my legs, as I stare at nothing, trying to clear my head.

The glass door from the room slides open after a while. I glance that way as Karissa stalls in the doorway, wearing a sleeveless flowered dress that falls just above her knees.

"We just have to wait on the thingy to turn green," she says, holding a user's manual in her hand, her eyes scanning it. It's bigger than the one for the coffee machine I bought her, but she didn't hesitate to utilize this one.

"Waiting on the thingy," I repeat, "to turn green."

"Yep." She glances at me. "It shouldn't take too long, right?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

Two hours later, the light on the charger is still yellow. Karissa runs around, fixing her hair, putting on makeup, changing shoes half a dozen times, all the while telling me how sorry she is for holding us up. I can only take it for so long before I step in the room and grasp ahold of her hips when she tries to walk past me, locking her in place. "Stop apologizing."

"But—"

As soon as she tries to speak, the light on the charger flickers, turning green. I motion toward it. "See? It's ready."

Ten minutes later, we're finally out the door, camera in her hand, the first shoes she tried on back on her feet. It's still early, barely ten o'clock in the morning as we set off through the streets.

"Where are we going?" she asks.

"Where do you want to go?"

"Anywhere," she says, shrugging.

"Huh."

"What?"

"For someone who dreamed of coming to Italy, you're awfully indecisive."

She rolls her eyes. "Okay, fine. The right answer would've been everywhere. I want to see everything, so I'll go anywhere, really, wherever you take me, because I want to do it all. Better?"

"Better."

We hit the usual tourist spots, museums and churches, taking in the Pantheon, the Piazza Navona, and the Spanish Steps. She snaps picture after picture excitedly, and I just watch her, admiring her enthusiasm. We grab a light lunch at a small café before making our way to the Colosseum. The lines are ridiculously long, but I see Karissa's expression light up as she eyes it, so there's no way we can skip it.

We get in the back of the line to wait. Karissa snaps a few pictures from the outside, taking in the scenery, the picture-perfect little tourist with the camera glued to her face. It's almost like I'm not even around, and that's okay for the moment, I think. Her guard's down, defenses lowered.

It's the whole point in coming here. If it means me being ignored, so be it.

As long as she's happy…

After nearly thirty minutes we're finally to the front. I buy two tickets and we make our way around the winding paths into the Colosseum. Her eyes light up as she takes it the sight of the interior, parts of the ancient amphitheater crumbling and withering away, but even I have to admit it's a magnificent beast of concrete and stone.

Karissa snaps more pictures as we walk around before she lowers the camera and approaches a free railing, giving her a better view all around.

"It's beautiful," she says quietly, staring down at the exposed underground tunnels. "I wish I could've been here back then and seen it all in tact."

I can't help myself. I laugh at the reverence in her voice. It's not mocking, although the look she casts me makes me think it sounds that way. "Yeah, that would be nice, I guess, if you like that sort of thing."

"What sort of thing?"

"Mass slaughtering."

Her eyes widen.

I laugh again.

So innocent.

"What did you think the Romans used this place for, Karissa?"

"I don't know," she says. "Plays, and shows, or sports, or like, festivals."

"Oh, they were festivals, all right," I say. "Just the kind that involved a lot of gore."

"I mean, I knew there were gladiators," she says as I step closer, pausing beside her at the railing. "I knew people watched them fight to the death sometimes. But they were warriors."

So naïve.

"Back then, they'd execute thousands of people in one day," I say. "And they certainly weren't humane about it. There would be so much blood they'd have to put down a layer of sand on the floor to soak it up. They'd unleash lions on unarmed men, and fifty thousand people would sit in this place and watch them be ripped apart, piece-by-piece. You wouldn't have lasted a minute in one of those seats, Karissa. You couldn't even watch the boxing match in Vegas without shielding your eyes when somebody got hit."

She looks torn between fascination and revulsion. "We just waited in line for half an hour to stand inside what's practically an execution chamber? Why?"

"Because, like you said, it's beautiful."

"Death?"

"I meant the Colosseum, but sure." I casually lean against the railing, eyeing her peculiarly. "Death can be. It's a part of life. Some of us are lucky to live longer than others, but everything that's born will eventually die. None of us are immortal."