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a good stand-in for Paige, Asher would have been it. We sought out breakfast first, finding a little café where we got ridiculously strong coffee and amazing pastries. It was a good start to the day.
    “So,” he said, “where do you want to go today? The Forum?”
    “I was actually thinking about the Colosseum first, if that’s okay with you?”
    “Anywhere is okay with me,” Asher said. “I’m easy.”
    “Duly noted,” I said before I could stop myself. When he looked at me with a wicked grin, I could feel my face heat up—I’m sure turning three shades rosier. Maybe saying what was on my mind wasn’t always the best idea. I mean, I didn’t want this to turn into a flirting thing with Asher. I definitely shouldn’t go there.
    Twenty minutes later we were walking through the ruins of the Colosseum and I was bursting from the awesomeness.
    “This place was new almost two thousand years ago,” I kept saying, more to myself than to Asher. “Like people actually stood where I’m standing two thousand years ago. Crowds were roaring…”
    “People were dying…” Asher said.
    “I know…it has a horrific history but it’s so freaking majestic even though half of it is gone. I mean, look at this place!” I waved my arms all around. “It seated like fifty thousand people. It’s the original huge sports stadium made TWO THOUSAND years ago.” I looked around the immense arena, the pinkish stone of the interior crumbling, one outside wall half gone. I was standing on history. “Doesn’t that just blow your mind?”
    Asher didn’t respond, so I turned to find him looking at me with this great smile on his face.
    “What?”
    “Nothing,” he said, still smiling. “I just like how excited you are by all this.”
    “Well, aren’t you?”
    “Yeah.” He nodded. “I am. But so many people come to Europe just to drink and party. You’re not like that.”
    “I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life.” I looked around again. “Okay, maybe not my whole life, but for the past four years I’ve been planning this trip. And I was crushed when it wasn’t going to happen. So the fact that I’m actually here—” I swept my arm out. “—standing in the Colosseum in the middle of Rome—I’m not going to waste this experience on getting drunk and ending up in bed with some guy whose name I can’t remember the next morning, going home with a few months of blurry memories. I want to soak this place up and remember everything about it.”
    He was smiling at me again.
    “What? It’s dorky, I know.” And a part of me panicked for a second that he wasn’t going to like this part of me, that maybe I should pretend to be interested in partying too. But what I’d said was true. It was me, and I was committed to being myself. So I shrugged and blew the hair out of my face that had escaped from my ponytail.
    “It’s totally dorky,” Asher said, then laughed at my incredulous expression. “And adorable. You’re adorkable.” He reached out and tucked the hair behind my ear, and I noticed a fine dust still covered his fingers—he’d picked up some sand and let it run through his fingers earlier, and then run his hands over the walls wherever he could. He seemed to experience the world as much through touch as he did through sight.
    I kind of liked that. It made me want to touch more of the world, too.
    “Hey, Skye! Asher! Over here.” On our way out of the Colosseum, Julia, Shayne, and Tommy were waiting in line to get in.
    “You disappeared so early,” Shayne said.
    “What do you mean?” I said. “I was up at nine.”
    “Oh, see,” Tommy said, placing his hand on Shayne’s shoulder. “Shayne here doesn’t get up until noon most days.”
    “And there’s nothing wrong with that,” she said, slapping his hand away and then poking him in the chest. “I haven’t heard you complaining about getting to sleep in every day.”
    “Not complaining,” Tommy said. “Just explaining.”
    I