"First things first," I announce as soon as I walk into the gallery, clearly beating Ginevra into getting the first word. She shuts her mouth as soon as I talk. I'm guessing she wanted to get 'hellos and how are yous' in but we don't have time for that. "We have a lot of things to do today."

She nods readily in understanding. "Tell me what I can do."

Normally, I do all of the work myself. Not because there is no one else to assist. All the places I've worked at, they've been kind enough to offer help from the people who work at the galleries even though the person who is displaying the photographs should do all the work since it's their exhibition. They have to put in all the work which is fair. But I have this knack of doing everything by myself. I don't trust people with my work. They could screw it up whereas I will make sure that every detail is like I want it.

But today, I have to squeeze in a month's work in one single day.

I slide my bag from my shoulder and place it on the bench we sat on last night. I take out my USB. "I'm going to get these developed. Meanwhile, you should go and buy fifteen golden 11*14'' frames. I'll pay you later."

"There's no need for that." She says genuinely. "It's the least I can do for giving you such a short notice."

"Alright." I give her a small smile. "Let's get to it then."

The photo lab isn't that far. It's walking distance so I don't bother taking a cab. Still, I hurry. I don't know how much time they will take developing them so I must cut out on any extra time.

Walking through the streets of Bologna is not much different than Rome. The identical coloured buildings accompany me as I walk from street to street before reaching the photo lab.

There is a guy at the reception desk whom I ask right away about how much time will it take to get the pictures developed.

"What kind of prints do you want?" He asks, not fazed by my barging in. I assume it happens all the time.

"Lustre." I reply.

Matte prints are my personal favourite. I don't like lustre and glossy prints. It comes off as too glossy whereas matte is sophisticated. But matte works better with black and white and since none of my photos are monochromatic this time, lustre is the better choice.

I look around the place. It's not crowded at all. Only a few people are there and most of them are leaving with their desired prints in hand. I'm internally relieved. This means it won't take that much time. Getting photos developed doesn't take that much time in itself. It depends on how occupied the lab is.

"They will be ready in an hour. Do you also want them framed?" He doesn't take his eyes off the laptop the entire time he's talking to me, seemingly busy.

"Yes. I will pick them up in an hour." I leave the USB on the desk and leave. Mostly, it's my camera and I stay at the lab the entire time they're developing it. But since I don't have time to do that today so I transferred them on something I can leave in the hands of strangers.

I've had posters for every single one of my exhibitions for the purpose of advertisement. One might argue that I should just leave it this time but I'm already here so might as well. It adds a sense of organization to it all. If someone sees the poster on the door of the gallery, they will be compelled to come in.

Finding a printing shop isn't that hard. A lot of galleries are where these facilities are nearby and this is how it should be. It makes the whole process easier. You don't have to run from one place to the other to get things done. I find one easily and pick a design that matches the one in my mind. The poster will have date, time, venue and names of both the theme and me.

It doesn't take me too much time to decide the design of the poster. Luckily, they have the colours and font I want. I get a decent amount printed including one giant poster that will cover the front of the gallery.

"Tell me you have some people who can help displaying these posters all over the city." I speak as soon as Ginevra picks up.

"Yes, yes. I will send them to you right now. Where are you?"

"Copisteria Monopoli. Did you get the frames?"

"Yes, I'm heading to the gallery with them right now."

"Good. The photos will be ready in," I look at the time on my phone. "25 minutes."

I'm about to tell her to get the helpers to me as soon as possible when I see three people coming my way, carrying bags, most likely with supplies to spread the posters all over Bologna. "I'll be at the gallery soon."

I told her what things I want set up for the theme last night and I'm hoping she has them ready.

I hang up the phone when they reach me. One of them says, "Ginevra sent us."

"Great. Take these and paste them everywhere you can." I hand them the freshly printed posters and hurry to the gallery.

Ginevra is already there when I go, placing all the things I told her to get ready for the theme on a big wooden table. I don't have to check the time to know that one of us should be getting to the photo lab. I tell her to go while I set up everything. She takes the frames and hurries out.

The gallery has just enough space for everything that I want to do. The floor and walls are already beige so that's one less thing to do. There are two benches; one on either side of each other so that visitors can sit and admire the exhibit photos if they like. On the entrance, there is considerable space to set up a table for my business cards and a guestbook, sitting on top of a flaxen silk cloth covering the table. I pick up the stack of sunflowers and fix them on strings. I hang them on the wall by putting my feet on a table to stand higher. I walk to the other side of the room to stand on the couch to put yellow-gold curtains on the window behind it. I step off it to see if I did it right.

A lot of time must have passed in me doing this because Ginevra rushes in with framed photos. She takes a look around and says, "Stai bene."

"Aspetta che le mettiamo su." I grin and take the frames from her to look for any dust particles inside the glass frame but I find none. People observe deeply so there should be nothing appalling. The glass looks clear so we start putting up the frames on the wall. It's so much better to be working in silence. Or maybe it's just the unspoken tension of this not working out that both of us are concerned about so we stick to our work so that it doesn't happen and instead we pull it off. I'm on the last photo frame when I see movement outside the front door. Ginevra goes to see what's going on.

She comes back with her employees behind her. "They were just putting up the poster on the door."

I nod and motion to the last frame I just put up. "This was the last."

"So it's done?" She asks, excitement laced in her voice.

"No," I say, walking to the front door before checking the clock for the hundredth time today. 5 P.M.

I open the door and people swarm in to see the exhibition. I turn to her, smirking. "It's done now."

She goes in, satisfied to attend to the visitors as I go out the door to see how it looks when I walk in just as children do after cleaning up their rooms. The poster says 'All Through Rome' in a semi bold Script font with the Colosseum poking out in the golden background.

I go in and observe everything I set up; the table, the sunflowers, the golden frame. Everything fits. It all goes with the theme I conjured up in my head. People are observing it all. Chatting and sharing opinions while pointing at the photos. Some are taking photos of the set up.

She was right; they are all tourists. I can tell by the way they're dressed.

I stand with a glass of cold water in my hand, gulping it down to make up for the dehydration of the day. After a while, I decide to inspect my own photos. I didn't pay any attention to them all day. I was too busy getting everything ready in time for the exhibition.

I make my way to the first photo. It's the multicolored skyline I saw at the Colosseum. The next is the buildings on the sides of the Trevi fountain. Then, the hunter green water. The oranges gleaming in the night light in the Orange garden. The tangerine sunset.

As I go from one photo to the other, I observe real hard and my hand hovers over them unintentionally with realization.

The theme I chose is the feeling Harry gave me and the one hiding in me subconsciously all this time.

Yellow. Sunshine. Golden.

I look around and everyone is looking at them. Everyone can see them. Everyone else is seeing what I experienced.

The fog in my memory is starting to diminish the harder I look at the photos. Was it really not a fever dream? Was it really not something I made up?

I buried the wanderings so deep in my head because I didn't believe it happened. When I've lived only living on affection that I created myself in my mind and saw none of it come to life, that was what I could unhesitatingly come to terms with. So I covered them with ash grey because it was so hard to deal with them. To deal with what I made myself memorize; that breathing his air will never happen.

But seeing it all displayed in front of me is telling me that it did.

My heart goes up and down.

It was real. It was real. It was real.

I say it internally as many times as it takes me to believe it.

"Jahanara, so many people are asking for you." Ginevra's quirky voice breaks my new found acceptance. "You should meet them."

"Coming," I follow her. People pay my work all kinds of compliments while my mind drones them out. I smile and nod and say thank you randomly because I'm elsewhere right now.

After months of pushing it all away, I believe it. I believe everything.

The exhibition that I worked so hard for, I want nothing more than for it to end already. I need to do something important. I finally need to stop running.

I sent a text to Alessandro. This time, it's me asking for Harry's number. Meanwhile, people talk to me about my photos. I do my best to be engaged in the conversations while nervously waiting for his reply.

More visitors come as every hour passes and soon it's almost time for the exhibition to end. I encourage people to write their contact numbers and comments in the guestbook. A lot of them take my business cards on their way out.

When only a few people are left, Ginevra comes to me and says, "You really pulled it off."

"Just don't give me such a short notice next time." I say jokingly but kind of mean it too.

"Don't worry. No mistakes next time." She assures me.

The last batch of people are leaving when my phone vibrates. I get a weird surge in my heart. I tell her I have to catch an early flight tomorrow when I don't and she says she'll deposit the amount in my account.

I step out, saying goodbye and check my phone for the text. He sent me his number. I get the same weird feeling but then I see another text he sent,

Don't know if it's best to call him right now. Something terrible happened.