Getting Through Italy

|10| Lasagna

|10| -  "You can't compare your relationship to someone else's."

"Do you think we'll lose part of our deposit?"

Jasmine ran her fingertips over the dent in my bedroom wall, then gently brushed away at the dark mark surrounding it. It smudged further and she retracted her hand.

"Part of your deposit maybe," she said with a smile. "You're the one who's damaged the property."

"I'm being serious, Jas."

She laughed and let her arm drop back down to her side. "Chill, Izzy. I doubt they'll even notice. Just reposition the bed to hide it, and then nobody will be any the wiser."

I pressed my lips together and frowned, unable to tear my eyes away from the incriminating evidence of my vigorous bedroom activities.

"It's quite obvious, though, don't you think?"

"Nah," she replied. "It only looks obvious because you know it's there. You didn't notice it at the weekend, did you?"

"No, but I was distracted."

She chuckled. "Don't need to state the obvious."

My frown deepened and I folded my arms. "Maybe if you hadn't encouraged us to go wild, then we wouldn't have been so energetic."

She grinned. "In which case, I'm proud to take partial responsibility and will happily forfeit some of my deposit, too."

I sighed and pushed the bed further back towards the wall again. "You're probably right. I only noticed it because I dropped my phone down the back and needed to move the bed to get to it."

"It'll be fine. You worry too much."

She was right. I did worry too much, about too many issues that had too little significance in the grand scheme of things. No doubt, in a few months' time, I would have forgotten all about the dent. Nevertheless, I took a photo and sent it to Nathan—more as a source of amusement than anything else.

A few minutes later, the two blue ticks appeared to show that he'd looked at the message, but he didn't reply. I pushed it from my mind, knowing he'd be at work and unlikely to engage in conversation over a tiny dent if he was swamped with tasks to complete. Lunch-time was our period for chatting, so I'd wait until then.

Joining Jasmine in the lounge, I noticed she was on the TrenItalia website, scouring through a list of train times and flicking between different tabs on her laptop.

"Planning something?" I asked.

"Yes. A trip."

"Sounds fun. Am I invited?"

"I'll say. It's for your bucket list."

I smiled and settled down on the sofa, shuffling around until I'd found a comfy position to lie in. The bright sun streamed through the balcony door, landing on my face and instantly relaxing me. Although we were in December and the city had lost its warmth, the sun still made a regular appearance.

"I'm starting to think this bucket list is more for your benefit than mine."

"Well, I want to travel around—as do you. This is just a convenient excuse. It'd be good to fit as many cities as possible into our time here."