The Search for Lily Myers ✓

47 | On Top of the World, Pt. I

Even by the time she was slouching into the passenger seat of his car at 3 a.m. on December 26th, Amelia wasn't sure it had hit her yet that she was about to get nearly two weeks of uninterrupted time with Henry. On another continent.

She was too sleepy to think clearly, much less speak, but she instinctively reached over to hold his hand once she'd buckled her seatbelt. He seemed more alert than she was, an obvious necessity considering that he was the one driving. They'd only tossed around the idea of taking an Uber, which would have been exponentially more cost-effective than parking at the airport, for all of five seconds. Given the recent circumstances, neither of them was comfortable with the thought of getting in a stranger's car in the middle of the night.

This was much more pleasant, anyhow. She could close her eyes and let herself doze off a little bit for the twenty-minute ride, to listen to the faint hum of heat blowing out of the air vents and the oddly soothing, repetitive click-clack of the car's turn signals.

"We can get coffee at the airport," Henry murmured to her.

Amelia nodded. She wanted to try to sleep on the plane, of course, but because they'd be crossing so many time zones, she would be less jetlagged if she could hold off on napping until the last few hours of their flight. Their plane was due to land in Rome around midnight and they'd be driving to Florence from there, so she'd have another few hours to rest while it was too dark to see any of the scenery out the windows anyhow. And she didn't feel particularly as though she'd be missing out on anything—the same views would be there when they eventually left Florence and headed back toward the south.

Their travel itinerary was apparently a tried and true one, the same route the family usually took when they came to visit Robert and Teresa's parents every couple of years. Fly into Rome, then make the drive up to Florence and stay there for a few days. That was the part Amelia was most looking forward to. Considering that Florence was widely regarded as the birthplace of the Renaissance, it was any artist or historian's dream to see it at least once, and she was also told that it was a great place for tourists to get acclimated to Italy because it was easy to navigate by foot and teeming with amazing sights and restaurants. Then they'd drive down to the little coastal town where Henry's dad and aunt grew up, which was where they'd meet his grandparents and enjoy a couple of laid-back days listening to the sounds of the sea and simply enjoying everyone's company while their sore bodies recovered from running around Florence. That way they could go up to Rome with plenty of energy to explore the massive city and make the most of the last several days of their trip before they had to fly home.

It was exciting enough to make her pulse quicken with anticipation despite her current fatigue. She'd barely even traveled halfway across the United States before, much less halfway across the world, and yet the prospect wasn't actually all that intimidating since the majority of their group spoke at least a little bit of Italian. Henry claimed to not know much of the language at all, but she sensed he was underselling himself to keep her expectations low. Amelia was very intrigued to see firsthand how much he managed to pull off.

Getting through airport security wasn't as horrible as she would have expected—the fact that it was the day after Christmas was somewhat offset by the fact that they were leaving on one of the earliest flights of the day. Once they were at their terminal, they stopped at the first water fountain they found to fill up the empty water bottles they'd brought with them for the plane. Amelia stifled a yawn and Henry asked her if she wanted him to go find that coffee he'd promised her. She obviously did, so they decided that he could pick something out for her while she went ahead with their bags to find a place to sit at their gate before it got crowded. There was no telling if the line at the coffee shop would take five minutes or thirty.