Last night as I passed the hall mirror on the way to bed, I studied my face. Sure enough: my lips were very pink and swollen. My head whipped around and I pretended to glare. “Just how long were you watching us?”

“I peeked outside just as he was charging back up the sidewalk. Good lord that was sexy. He swept you up and pinned you to the door in one swoop! I was fanning myself while I was pretending not to watch.”

“It was pretty great,” I admitted, running my fingertips across my lips just thinking about it. But something was bothering me. “I have a confession to make.”

She was reading the paper and peered at me over the top. “Yes, dear child. Confess.”

I made a face. “That’s beyond creepy and I’m guessing sacrilegious.”

With a shrug, she folded the paper and set it down. “Sit down and talk to Dr. Daisy.”

“I’m serious. I feel like . . . I don’t know . . . I’d feel better if I made it official.”

“Made what official?”

“My sins. All of my good lord look what I did now; tell me it’s okay. Do I pick one of the ninety-five thousand churches to confess in, or is Rome just so holy that you yell your sins outside at the sky and wait for judgment to befall you?”

Throwing her head back, she groaned. Loudly. “You’re so dramatic. Loosen the clutch on those pearls, will you? What is this, Doomsday? You went out with a hot guy who you have a history with. What could you possibly have to confess? That you’re enjoying your time with Marcello? That you’re loving your life for the first time in ages? That you’re sketching again? Please explain this to me, because I don’t understand why you feel bad, when Daniel is dipping his tiny dick into all of fucking Boston.”

“We don’t know that he’s sticking his . . . dick . . . into all of fucking Boston,” I muttered. And I wasn’t going to say tiny, because it wasn’t, poetic justice aside. Normal sized? Yes. Boring? Yes. Tiny? Sigh. No.

“Well, we don’t know that he isn’t, do we? So you might as well get yours while he’s getting his, because of course he’s getting his and—”

Frustrated, I stood quickly, bumping the table and sloshing her coffee over the edge of the blue cup. “That’s exactly my point! I don’t want to be Daniel! Don’t you see, if I get mine, doesn’t that make me just as bad?”

“You’re not cheating, Avery. You’re separated—practically divorced. You’re like . . . divorced adjacent. A piece of paper just needs to be signed for you to be officially free and back on the market.”

“I don’t know.” My stomach was in knots. “Maybe it’s because I feel like I shouldn’t be enjoying myself right now? Shouldn’t I feel worse about all of this?”

She threw her hands in the air. “Why? He cheated. Not you.”

That was the thing, though. This little sticky sticking point. I had cheated. Years ago. So was I mad that Daniel had cheated? Yes, but was I more mad that it made us the same?

Ugh.

But when I cheated on Daniel with Marcello . . . oh my God I’d do it again in a second.

Daisy was still talking. “You’re picking up the shitty cards he dealt you. So please don’t put yourself in the same category as that crap weasel.”

That made me chuckle. “Crap weasel? Wow, you’re not kidding.”

“Let me ask you this, if you went back to Boston today and he said he was sorry and he still loved you and he’d never cheat again, could you forgive him?”

There it was. Probably the single most important question about the single most important relationship in my entire life. And I knew the answer immediately.

“No,” I said simply, and I knew then without any shadow of a doubt that no matter what he said or did, I’d never forgive him.

“Then you shouldn’t feel guilty. A piece of paper does not a marriage make, Avery.”

“You’re right.”

“And to be clear, I love you, but I will kick your ass down the Spanish Steps if I hear you feeling guilty again.”

Then I wouldn’t say it out loud again. I was grateful for her input, but I still couldn’t say with all sincerity that the guilt over what I might be getting up to in Rome while my divorce was still being hashed out was over just because my best friend snapped her fingers. I did feel better for actually saying it out loud, though. Kind of.

A few hours later we were both getting ready to head out. Daisy was meeting up for dinner with some friends she made from a project she worked on months ago. “I feel like all I do here is eat, sketch, paint, sketch, eat, walk, and sometimes sleep. Is that wrong?” I asked, smoothing on my lipstick. “I was emailing my parents and it read like instructions for a retired person’s handbook.”

“If that’s wrong, who the hell wants to be right?” Daisy answered, stepping into another pair of killer stilettos. I still don’t know how she does it with all those cobblestones.

“I’ve got to mix it up a bit, though. More tours or more art groups.”

“What about the art group from the campo? The class you saw when you first got here?”

“Way ahead of you. I actually spoke with the woman the other day. I’m going to start with them soon. I just have to buy a few more brushes.”

“Excellent. I’ll hang everything up that you bring home.”

“You’re like my mom when she used to hang up my artwork on the fridge. She did that until I graduated BU, by the way . . .”