Bo put his phone down on the table.

"What did she say?" Anan asked eagerly, leaning in.

"She's coming over," Bo replied, unable to contain the grin spreading across his face. The unfamiliar scent of the sea and the low hum of conversations surrounding them grounded him in the foreign place. He looked around, taking in the sight of the cafe terraces filled with people chatting and sipping coffee. It amazed him how similar yet different life was here compared to Thailand. The coffee culture was strong in both places, but the pace, the energy—it was distinctly European. Bo found himself wishing he could understand the language, curious to know what stories these people were sharing.

Leaning back in his chair, he crossed his arms behind his head and inhaled deeply, letting the salty air fill his lungs. "You know what? I think this might be the best decision I ever made," he said, feeling a wave of self-assurance.

"I'm with you on that, my friend. The journey was long, but worth every second. And tomorrow, the Arena awaits!" Anan couldn't hold back his excitement about seeing the colosseum any longer, and Bo didn't mind. He was glad to see Anan as enthusiastic as he was.

"I'm almost regretting that we booked the flight back on Wednesday. If I'd known it would be like –" Bo's words faltered as he spotted her.

Nina was walking quickly, her blue eyes scanning the crowd. His heart leapt, sending a rush of warmth through his chest. She looked even more striking than he remembered, her dark green dress hugging her figure perfectly. Was it the effect of seeing her in her home country, or had he just forgotten how beautiful she was? He almost didn't want to interrupt the moment, but when her eyes met his, he couldn't resist a slow smile. Nina laughed, her shoulders shaking lightly. That smile... it might have been the best thing he had seen in this lifetime.

She reached their table, hugging Anan warmly before turning to him. "Hi, guys," she said with a smile. "So what? You two just casually flew into Croatia on this fine Sunday morning?"

Bo sprang from his chair, almost headbutting her in his eagerness. He grabbed her shoulders to steady her and pulled her into a tight embrace. Inhaling the familiar scent of her hair, he whispered, "I missed you," softly into her ear before letting go. Nina laughed, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear as she sat down.

Anan leaned forward, sipping his tiny espresso. "Yeah, well, when Bo told me you were having family troubles, I said we had to come and help you," he announced, pride swelling in his voice. "It's the least I could do after everything you've done for me. Plus, I needed a break."

Bo was surprised at Anan's openness. He'd expected him to offer some excuse for the sudden trip across the world, but it seemed that Anan and Nina were closer than he realized. He smiled, happy that they bonded.

"All I know is someone told me Croatia is best in October," he said, smirking. "So after we talked on the phone I thought, well it's October, if I visit now, I will have an excellent guide. And you were right," he glanced around quickly "October in Croatia is quite nice."

A young cheerful waitress came to take Nina's order. She kept glancing towards Anan as Nina was talking to her in Croatian.

"It's so good to see you both," she said after ordering and facing back at them. "When exactly did you arrive? And how?"

Anan was fidgeting in his seat. "Nina, will you take us to see the colosseum tomorrow? Is it near, can we see it from here?"

Nina seemed confused for a second. "The colosseum? You mean the arena? It's in another city. You can't –" she laughed heartily. "You can't see it from here. Bo felt his whole body relax. He had been worried about her after they talked on the phone, he and Anan were waiting to be boarded when her text arrived. "You want to see the colosseum? I didn't know you had a fascination with history."

"Gladiator is my favorite movie!" Anon exclaimed.

"You know that's another colosseum, right?"

"I know, that one is a bit too far, we'll see the other one next time," he said, not sounding disappointed at all. Bo could just sit there listening to them without feeling the need to say anything. He was buzzing with happiness at being in Nina's company again. He hadn't doubted his decision for a second, but he underestimated the effect seeing her would have on him.

"We arrived an hour ago," he finally answered her question. "We rented a car in Zagreb early this morning, and drove here. We are staying at hotel Adriatic," he said, pointing at the old building behind Nina, its weathered stone walls bearing the marks of centuries of history. He loved it.

"Amazing, I used to work there as a student," she beamed. "I will be happy to take you to Pula tomorrow. It might take my mind off the upcoming trial, but it will have to be pretty early in the morning. I promised to help my aunt in the afternoon."

"Alright!" Anan said. "Now that we settled that, I'm off to bed, because in contrast to my sturdy friend here," he said, grabbing Bo's shoulder. "I've got a major case of jet lag." He got up slowly and reached for his wallet. Bo waved his hand signaling he got it.

Anan kissed Nina on the cheek and then leaned over to Bo kissing the air on either side of his face. The waitress arrived with Nina's order and placed the chilled glass on the table. Nina chuckled as Bo slapped Anan's back.

"You're leaving already?" the waitress asked in a disappointed tone.

"I'll be back soon" Anan said, and then winked with a hand in his hair. He turned and made his way to the hotel leaving the waitress looking a bit miserable.

"Rest well," Nina said to his back and then it was just the two of them.

"What do you say after you finish your drink we take a walk?" Bo suggested.

Nina chugged her soft drink and looked around to find the waitress. Bo was already ahead of her. He took a bill from his wallet and left it on the table.

"Let's go," she said and he followed her.

Their footsteps echoed on the cobbled streets as they made their way across the city square. He noticed an arched stone doorway on the other side of it with a statue of a lion carved into it. Old buildings painted in bright colors with contrasting window shutters fascinated him. Stone balconies twisted with bright purple climbing plants contrasted with the bright blue sky.

"This is how I always imagined Venice," he said, walking slowly beside Nina, not able to keep his gaze forward.

"Rovinj, along with a big part of Istria, used to be part of Italy, the Venetian influence is pretty strong here," she explained.

They soon entered a narrow street, and started climbing through it. On their left, every now and then, they could see the bright blue sea sparkling through wide openings between the buildings, and at one point they came across an art gallery overlooking the sea. It was small, built entirely out of stone and Bo simply stood motionless in front of its doors, unable to take another step. It was roofed, but didn't have windows, only stone pillars which gave it the effect of a balcony more than a room. Since it was nestled between two buildings, it was still well sheltered. He felt like he was looking into a sacred place.

"Oh, I completely forgot this was here." Nina said. "Do you want to go in?"

Bo only managed to nod. She took his hand and pulled him inside. From the first moment his foot made contact with the stone floor, worn smooth by centuries worth of footsteps, he knew he would love to be able to expose his art there. He envisioned his paintings, but also sculptures, ones he hadn't yet made, but somehow now had a very clear vision of.

There was a certain quietness inside, with wind breezing through freely. Subdued gray tones prevailed. The gallery looked deserted. There was another room next to the semi opened one, almost bare, with white walls and only a few art pieces exposed. They went inside to look around. Most of the art featured a kind of sea motif, be it a small wooden ship, fishermen sitting by the sea, fiddling with their nets, or just the vastness off the blue itself.

He wondered who the artist was but there was no one they could ask. Nina was still holding his hand, and he made small circling motions over her knuckles.

She looked at him.

He tugged on her hand to which she smiled and closed the distance between them. He pressed his lips on hers hungrily, inhaling her breath in the process. She let out a little sound that echoed in the empty room and ricochet off the walls. He put his arms around her and pulled her closer, pushing his tongue into her mouth. She let him in and at the moment their tongues met, he felt her hand stroking his back, latching on to him for dear life. He hadn't realized until then he wasn't the only one hungry for their closeness. He wanted to take her clothes off, touch her skin, make her burn with desire and then satiate it with his body. But that was not why he came and with another deep kiss he disengaged.

"Let's go somewhere we can talk," he said, his voice cracking. He gazed into her ignited eyes for a few moments before she blinked as if waking from a dream and nodded.

They kept climbing through the narrow street, finally reaching the summit with a view overlooking the horizon. There were a few islands surrounding the city, rich with greenery and baroque villas. She guided him further and soon started walking down stone stairs towards the rocky beach. There were a few swimmers in the sea, and a couple of people sunbathing but it wasn't difficult to find a private spot where they sat down facing the distant cerulean horizon.

"Alright," he said, taking her hair and looking at her. He waited for her to face him and then continued. "What did I miss? Tell me everything. Let me in, I want to help."

She sat there, looking at him with her mouth slightly opened and stayed silent. Then she turned back towards the horizon. A seagull flew in from the distance and landed on his orange flippered feet on a rock not far from them.

"I have no idea where to begin. It's all so complicated. My father passed abruptly and left a mess," she said, hiding her face between her hands. "If only he was still alive, I wouldn't have to deal with any of this."

"How did he die?" he asked softly.

"That's the worst part," she said, taking a deep breath. "He ended his life by hanging." She readjusted her position and glanced at him.

He was afraid it was something like that. She had already mentioned a few times her father was dead, but since there were never any details about an illness or an accident, he assumed the circumstances were hard to talk about.

"It was me," she continued, before giving him a chance to react. "I found him. He left a note. I knew he was depressed, but he was getting treatment. It seemed to be working. We were taking walks together every few days. He smiled. He laughed even. I thought it was just a mid-life crisis. I was wrong."

"I'm so sorry," he said, stroking her back. He rested his hand on her hip, drawing her closer and kissed her temple. My mother wasn't the best, but it was still hard to lose her. I can't even imagine what it must have been like for you. How old were you?"

"Twenty seven. It happened almost exactly two years ago. The weird thing is I never felt angry at him for abandoning me. I just felt sad that he suffered so much that the only escape he saw was the void. I know he loved us, so to choose that route I just – " a tear escaped her eye and fell slowly toward her mouth. He resisted the urge to kiss it away. "I can't even imagine what it must have been like, in his head."

"How did your mother take it?"

The waves crashed into rocks loudly. He thought about his own parents, wondering if they ever really loved each other, wondering how he would feel if he went through anything similar to what she had gone through.

"My mother never really showed much emotion. When he died, she seemed to go about her life as if nothing happened. My aunt arranged the funeral, took care of us for a few days. I fell apart while the coffin was being lowered into the ground. She held me and for a short while, I felt like maybe I would survive it. But one morning when I came to the kitchen I overheard her and my mother fighting and Luana stormed off. She hasn't been to our house since."

She stopped, as if gathering strength. He squeezed her waist and rested his temple against hers.

"At first the grief made me numb, the six months following his death are still a blur to me, I was just going through the motions. They cut me a lot of slack at work, but it was the only thing providing an anchor so I kept going. When the fog cleared a bit, I started noticing I didn't feel at home in that house anymore. Rita and mom had always been a team, and it quickly became unbearable. I felt like Rita was taking out her grief on me, whereas for mom, she was just reinforcing my belief that she never really wanted me. She even said so a few times. She got pregnant in her second year of college, and made it perfectly clear she blamed me for never completing her education. Mom and Rita would sit in the kitchen having coffee and talking and suddenly went quiet when I came in. They went shopping and "forgot" to invite me. Then my birthday came and they acted as if they didn't know. I felt like I didn't exist, and caught myself thinking about what it would be like to –"

It pained him to listen to her talking about it, but at the same time, he wanted to know. He hoped that by listening, he could ease some of the pain, shoulder part of the remorse but felt constantly unsure of what to say. He never before found himself in a situation where the problems of the other person were so deep, and so clearly unredeemable. There was no advice to offer here, nothing he could do, and he suddenly understood completely why she had relocated to the other part of the world.

She continued as if reading his mind.

"I knew I had to get away if I was going to get over it. I felt like I had to do something drastic, and Asia had always been a dream of mine. But it never made sense to visit another continent for a few weeks. I wanted to live there, really experience what it was like. One day I met Luana for coffee. I think she knew exactly what I was dealing with. As if in passing, she mentioned I should take a trip and asked me if there was a place I always wanted to visit. When I told her about Asia she encouraged me to take the plunge. Two months later I bought the ticket and from that very moment on I felt myself starting to breathe again."

"But of course, as the date of departure approached, I got anxious as hell," she continued, her gaze still fixed on the horizon. "I had no idea what to expect and suddenly wanted to stay here, where everything was familiar. I had a million doubts, and spent more than a few sleepless nights questioning the decision. But I knew I would regret it if I didn't go. I didn't want to wake up one day, fifty years old, resentful and asking myself what if. So I made myself go, despite the uncertainty. It was honestly the scariest thing I've ever done, and the only thing that helped was knowing my father would have been proud of me. But I'm not so sure about that anymore."

Bo's stomach growled loudly and it shook her from the trance. She jerked her gaze at him with eyes wide open.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry!! Oh, you just flew halfway across the world and I haven't even offered you food." She got up and held out a hand. "Well, there's no doubt how my father would feel about this," she said, trying to laugh it off. "Let's go, I'm taking you to my favorite place in town."

They walked down halfway through the narrow street again and then Nina turned into a side street and led him through a tunnel of tiny cobbled dark alleys, turning right and left and he was soon completely lost. They finally came upon a small Italian place called "Da Sergio" and went inside.

A mouth watering smell of pizza overwhelmed him as they sat down to a table covered with red and white checkered tablecloth. They poured over menus for a short while before a middle aged waiter with a round belly approached them.

Bo ordered a calzone and Nina opted for a pasta carbonara. They both ordered local beer that Nina recommended.

"Tell me about your parents," she said. "I know your mother had drug problems. You never talked about your father much."

"My father was a poet. He died when I was fifteen. My mother wasn't strong enough to handle life on her own. They got married very young, she was practically a child herself. My father took care of us both. She started using while he was still alive. I think it broke his heart."

Beneath the table, Nina took his hand. They were quiet while he contemplated how much of the story to reveal. The radio was on, a female speaker was talking in Croatian, with what seemed to him an incredibly fast pace. He wondered what they were saying. The restaurant was mostly empty, it was just them and another couple at the other side of the room.

"Do you resent her?" Nina asked.

"I don't know," he said after a brief pause. "I probably do. I spent half my childhood hoping she would get better. A lot of disappointments ensued. Every time I saw my dad crying I remember thinking grown men shouldn't cry. I was ashamed of him"

"Your father was a sensitive man," Nina said. Their meals arrived, steaming. They thanked the waiter.

"I think so, I think in a way I probably resent them both. Him for being, what I then perceived as weak, and her, for making it so hard for him. We could have been happy. There was love there. A lot of love, now that I think about it," he smiled faintly. "If only she could have remained clean –" he trailed off, taking the cutlery into his hands.

"You know, growing up I heard people say, God only burdens you with as much as you can carry," she said, pouring beer into her glass. "It never made sense to me, even when I did believe in God."

"Why is that?"

"Well, there are so many broken people in this world. If they could carry their burden, they wouldn't break, would they? I'm saying this because when I listen to you talk about your parents, it seems to me your mother might have been going through something. Something she couldn't talk about. I didn't know her of course, but maybe it was the only way she knew how to deal with whatever it was?"

Bo took a bite of his calzone. The crust was crispy, and the insides tasted salty and gooey.

"I can't believe I'm in Croatia eating a pizza," his tone was suddenly lighthearted.

"I'm having a hard time believing it myself," Nina said, slurping a piece of spaghetti with gusto. "But it's the best thing that has happened since I arrived."

Bo enjoyed his meal but after they finished their beers, he started to feel the toll the long trip had taken on him. Nina must have noticed because while he was practically dozing off, she took care of the bill.

"Let's get you to bed before you take a nap on this bench" she teased.

"Hey, I came here to take care of you," he protested, giving himself a slight slap on the cheek.

"Maybe we can take care of each other?" she suggested, pulling him out of the bench.