Anywhere Read Online Free Page B

well that we’d be together forever. Someone who listened to me, who didn’t ignore the things I wanted to do in favor of his plans. Someone who could see me , who didn’t make me feel invisible. Like Blaine had.
    Why did everything keep coming back to Blaine?
    Let me just say that it would be so easy to blame him for everything, but in all reality Blaine didn’t deserve that. He hadn’t done anything wrong other than want to marry the wrong girl. He loved the person I’d pretended to be. I’ve spent my whole life trying to be who other people wanted me to be. It’s just my nature—I want people to be happy, I want them to like me. But I was so tired of getting it wrong. I couldn’t make everyone happy all the time no matter how hard I tried.
    And it had only made me miserable.
    I’d also come this close to marrying a man I didn’t really love, just to please everyone else.
    So I was done with it. As I’d driven to pick up Paige in Simsbury, I’d made the decision. I was going to be myself for the first time in my life. Can I just say how completely terrifying that was? Because if people didn’t like it, then it didn’t mean I’d gotten something wrong, it meant there was something wrong with me .
    Being myself was the scariest thing I’d ever done.
    At the same time, I never wanted to be in that situation again, in a relationship with someone who didn’t know the real me. I needed to trust—or at least hope—that someone would love me for me, flaws and all. And if he didn’t, then I didn’t want to be with him anyway.
    Because I was done pretending, and I was using this trip to get comfortable with the real me, letting her show, cementing her presence in my skin, in my mind. And that meant being her now. No matter what.
    Because really, if some guy didn’t like me, did it matter? I was starting to realize it didn’t. Like with Asher right at that moment—we were two strangers on a train. If he didn’t like me, then he could go his way and I could go mine, and we’d never even remember each other. That had happened hundreds of times in college. All those guys I’d met over the past four years and hadn’t been truly attracted to? Can’t remember even one of them. So it really didn’t matter.
    “I’m confused,” Asher said. “If they’re getting married, wouldn’t that mean it went well?” He raised an eyebrow and smiled.
    “Yes, it did. And I’m happy and worried all at the same time.”
    He grinned wider, pulled his sweater off, and stretched his arms up over his head. The muscles rolled and flexed under his skin, and he groaned softly. “I hate sleeping sitting up,” he said.
    “Me, too. I’m looking forward to a real bed tonight.”
    The train was slowing down, and I turned to look out the window. The countryside was giving way to a crowded city of old buildings—a blur of cream, terracotta, and tan.
    “Is this—”
    “Roma!” the conductor yelled out as he stepped into our car.
    I grinned at Asher and turned back toward the window.
    I was in Rome. And my eyes started to water again. Being here made me miss Paige even more. We would have had so much fun together. Though I could feel in my soul that this trip was going to change my life on so many levels, it wasn’t going to be as much fun on my own. But at the same time it felt amazingly good to have made it to my first stop. On my own—I glanced at Asher—mostly.
    There was so much I wanted to see here. This city was so full of history I felt overwhelmed even before I stepped foot on the ground. (Ground, by the way, that had been walked on by humans for at least ten thousand years and a city that’s existed for two and a half thousand years, which honestly blows my mind in all the best ways.)
    “Where are you staying?” Asher said.
    And for a moment my euphoria crashed into reality. I didn’t have a place to stay. And I had to remind myself that it was okay, it was part of the adventure.
    “I don’t know,” I said,