What a night. The fan blowing cool air on us was great. The rain, meanwhile, continued to pour all day, so we found shelter under a cathedral and caught up on work.
The owner of a pizzeria outside of the cathedral told us we looked hungry and asked if he could feed us. We loved the sincerity in his voice. Ash ordered a glass of wine with her personal pie. Talk about getting back on the horse. She was like a pestering fly on a farm.
After lunch we continued relaxing. It was hard for us to relax like this (harder for Ash than for me), but once we came to terms with the fact that we couldn’t afford to shop and had visited most of the famous places yesterday, it was an easy decision. I grabbed another bottle of wine from a market as Ash took refuge from the rain under a church ledge. We are sounding more and more like alcoholics, but I swear, it was casual drinking here.
When I returned to find her reading on the brick wall under the ledge, she looked gorgeous. She was perfectly at peace with her life, and she almost blended in with the wall and pillar of the cathedral. I took a picture of her reading on the wall, and to this day it is my favorite of our entire journey. Ashley wore Italy well.
By the time we got to dinner, we were still forty dollars under budget. This had the possibility of being the first night in Italy we were under budget. But somewhere between sitting on the wall in the rain and walking to dinner, we started arguing about something stupid. Whatever it was, it wasn’t what we were actually fighting about. It was just the last piece of tinder that was needed to spark a wildfire, and neither of us felt like being a fireman right then.
The Chianti catalyst wasn’t helping. Red wine is like that high school idiot who stands behind an argument and chants, “Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!” The argument intensified. We only took breaks to politely order food and put on our “fake waiter smiles.” Ash ordered pasta, which inevitably came out before my pizza. During her meal, we self-prescribed the silent treatment. At this point, we could finish each other’s sentences, so arguing just became a chess match. She finished her food, stood up dramatically, and said, “I am going home,” leaving me to wait on my food. She had my king in her sight: check.
I ate half my pizza and boxed it up, although I wasn’t overly worried about her getting kidnapped in Siena. I passed a gelato shop that I couldn’t resist, and blew our last five dollars for the day on the frozen treat. At least we were right at our budget. By the time I got home, I found Ash sitting on the stoop outside our place. I could feel the heat from her fuming ears. I’d had the keys all along. I guess it wasn’t checkmate; I’d had that random rook in striking distance. She stood up furiously and proclaimed, “I can’t do this with you anymore. I think we should travel alone for a while and meet back up in Greece, and I used our last five dollars on gelato on the way home, so update the budget accordingly.” Hmmm, little did she know I’d also used … Never mind.
Her statement was clearly a bluff. I mean, without me she would fall asleep on a train and end up in the middle of Paris all over again, but what else could she say to get under my skin? Neither of us was going anywhere, and we both knew it. I needed her just as much as she needed me. That was the dangerous part about fighting on this journey: no words or actions could take away from the fact that we needed each other and we were in this together.
“Fine,” I told her. “I will look for my own Airbnbs tomorrow.” I called her bluff and went inside to sleep. She slammed doors and drawers as she got ready for bed, making sure I could hear her anger. The wine put me to sleep instantly, and I dozed off until she got into bed. Once again, she made sure I felt her anger with every movement under the covers.