Italy, Here We Come

Epilogue

*Two Months Later*

 “Can you believe the amount of homework we have?” Delaney huffed as she struggled to hold onto all the thick books without dropping them. I was doing the same. Of course after the first two weeks here we are loaded with more homework than ever. Where is the time to have fun and party hard? I don’t even have time to sleep!

Delaney and I took the time to think about what we really wanted and with a lot of help from our parents we decided we both wanted to major in Psychology. It was something we both enjoyed and surprisingly we were accepted into the college that had the top School of Education in the United States….Harvard!! So here we were in Cambridge, Massachusetts, such a far away from home but both of our families promised to visit as much as they can and of course we get to come home for holidays!

We haven’t even had the time to explore the entire campus yet but I know once we get into the swing of things and get caught up on our work we will have the time to search around and explore the area.

Our friend Ryden and his girlfriend Kaylin also got accepted here for Law School. So we are always hanging out when we can and grabbing a coffee together and chatting. Before all of us and our high school friends went our separate ways we threw one last bash and that will be a night to remember! Our quirky, short friend Jaidyn poured tomato sauce all over James because he called her a midget! He was so mad and stormed off fuming and dripping in tomato sauce. Once he got cleaned up we all had a good laugh at his expense and he just shrugged it off and laughed with us. I’m sure going to miss times like those…

“Oh crap.” Delaney’s frustrated voice pulled me out of my thoughts. “Watch where you’re going next time ass.”

All her books were scattered all over the ground and papers were flying everywhere. The breeze carrying them off into the air.

“I’m so sorry; I wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking.” A somewhat familiar voiced answered.

Before I had the chance to look up from picking up Del’s books Delaney let out a shriek. “Oh my Gosh! Xavier!”

Shocked I glance up from the ground and sure enough Xavier was standing there in the flesh, looking just like he did the last time we saw him.

“Delaney? Skylar?” He raised an eyebrow. “Fancy bumping into you here.”

“Yeah you bumped into us alright.” Delaney muttered as she gathered up the rest of the books off of the concrete.

“Here’s your pa—Skylar?” A voiced that I wished to hear every day asked in shock.

“Arden.” I replied trying to look anywhere but at the boy who broke down my wall and made me care for him and then just pushed me away like trash.

“Skylar…I…” He stuttered.

“Save it for someone who cares Arden.” I replied flipping my hair and turned to walk away. “Let’s go Delaney.”

“Hold on a minute. I need to talk to Xavier.” She replied as she walked off with him to talk.

I began to walk towards our dorm as a hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. The touch made my heard stutter and sent shocks up my arm. Oh how I’ve missed that feeling.” Skylar wait. I can explain why I never called or emailed.”

Sighing I plopped down onto the bench a few feet away from where I was standing. “Go right on ahead. This will be a laugh.”

He sighed and sat down next to me. I couldn’t help but peek at him and check him out. He hasn’t changed at all.

“Skylar, I never called or emailed because I didn’t want to end up hurting you. I care for you a lot and I knew if I kept in contact with you after Italy then I would fall even more in love with you than I had already and I knew that it would lead to nothing but heartache for the both of us. We lived several states away from each other and we both had different plans for college and there would have never been any way to have a relationship with each other. I thought that not contacting you would help the both of us move on…but it only made things worse. I couldn’t move on.” He placed his head in his hands.

“I get that Arden but the least you could do was email me and let me know all that so I wouldn’t be sitting there wishing that I would hear your voice every minute of the day. It felt like you just tossed me aside like trash once we came back to the states that everything in Italy meant absolutely nothing to you.”

“But that time we spent in Italy meant everything to me Skylar. I never forgot about you once and there were times when I would pick up the phone and dial your number and before it even rang I would chicken out and hang up.”

“Life sure has a funny way of working out huh? Who woulda thought we would run into each other at the same college. Funny how things work.”

“It sure is. At least Delaney was the one who suffered this time. At least it wasn’t you getting knocked over.” He chuckled as we both remember our first meeting. Well my face meeting with his door…

“That was a meeting I’ll never forget…I think I lost a few brain cells that day.” I giggled.

“So you’re not mad at me for not calling?” He asked looking over at me, his eyes full of hope.

“No I’m not.” And I wasn’t. I know I should be mad at him for never contacting me after Italy but I couldn’t help but understand his reasons. A relationship never would have worked out between us with the distance and it would have just hurt even more in the end when things went south.

“I still can’t believe that you and Del are here at Harvard. It’s amazing. I hope we can be hang out and maybe become something more than friends eventually.” He smiled and his voice was hopeful.

“Of course Arden.” I returned the smile and leaned back into the bench. He placed an arm around my shoulder and pulled me in closer, resting his head on top of mine. “I miss this. Being around you. It seemed like everything lost its color and beauty when you were no longer around. You brighten up my world Skylar.”

“I missed you too Arden. You and Italy were one of the best things that happened to me.” I sighed in content as we sat together watching the clouds roll by. I knew then that my new adventure had just started and I couldn’t wait to find out where it takes me…and us now that Arden is back in my life.

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 (A/N: Sorry about the spacing guys, everytime I go in and fix it and save it, it just reverts back to this! It's frustrating me so I've given up! Hope you don't mind it's a little more spaced out than usual! And I do hope you enjoyed the ending!)