As soon as Emily opened her eyes, she pinched herself again trying to figure out if she had dreamed everything that had happened to her for the last month. She remembered getting up early and, as always, getting ready for school doing her regular morning routine when she had exams. She tried being quiet as her roommate was still asleep, while looking for something to wear, she decided to dress comfortably, instead of heels some flats. She bought herself a coffee from Starbucks and she bought a doughnut at the cafeteria that she worked in. She had already memorized the whole content but she couldn't be at ease, not if she wanted to keep up with her scholarship, so instead she kept studying while she waited for the test to start.
As usual, as she and her friends made the tradition, they had bought another bunch of lottery tickets. She had kept some of the tickets with her as she had been one of the first who came with the idea and even though it was impossible she thought that maybe one day they would hit it big. Of course, some of her friends were not as optimistic and considered the whole thing as their private joke, which at times Emily did too, but that didn't stop them from buying tickets. All of them had different lives, that much was obvious, and there were times where they had grown somewhat apart. Yes, it was true that their friendship would always stay strong, but that didn't mean that life had gotten in the way.
All problems seemed to disappear as Emily connected the dots, more like the numbers. She was just about to take her final on advanced physics when she decided to check the lottery numbers, as a lucky charm, she read the numbers on her telephone screen and read them out loud. One by one, the numbers matched the ones in the ticket. In shock and unable to contain herself she got up screaming like a madwoman, tears of joy overflowing and a smile that she couldn't contain. She called the girls immediately each and everyone, not willing to tell them on the phone as maybe they wouldn't believed her, though she would never lie especially not about something as important. At the end she told the girls, still in tears, still hoping that their promise of traveling around the world remained intact as when they first made it.
- 1 Month Later -
Emily woke up from her daydream of what had happened just a month before and still couldn't believe that they had gone to Italy, Verona, everything was just like a dream come true. It had always been a dream of Emily's to travel somewhere else than a 3-4 hours drive from home, and now that she was here she only wished that she and her sister would have won the lottery sooner. "We are really here!" she said excitedly to the girls with a big smile. They had just gotten out of the cab as they arrived to the hotel, "La Rosa sul fiume Hotel". In one of the cabs there was Mike, Marcus, Christy & Maggie, while Emily, Danielle, Ashlyn & Jayson had taken another cab. They had all agreed to meet up at the hotel to leave all their luggage and then eat something, but neither the guys or the remaining girls were nowhere to be found.
"Where are u?! We're already at the hotel" Emily texted Mike before she turned her eyes away to see the hotel once again. The pictures of the hotel on her cellphone did not even by the slightest compared to what she could see, everywhere she turned her eyes there was a lot of green from the garden to the beautiful flowers that surrounded everywhere she turned her eyes to, it all seemed very... 'romantic' on Emily's eyes.
Marcus tagged along when Mike invited him to Italy, he had saved enough money as he planned to buy a new car but at the end going on a trip seemed much better. Besides, he was comfortable around with most of the girls, he knew Emily well through Mike, and he had talked a couple times with Christine. He had just finished a photo shoot and the new movie project he had would not start until months later so he had free time. He had barely told his parents about his plans on leaving for Italy on vacations when he left with Mike and the girls, after all he didn't want to bring his younger sister and didn't want them to worry themselves unnecessarily.
Marcus didn't say a word on the way to the hotel, he kept starring outside his window out in the city. 'so this is where she lived?' he wondered remembering his mother. It wasn't until he noticed that they had already taken more than fifty minutes on the cab, being the cautious person that he was he knew before they had arrived that the hotel was no longer than 30 minutes from the airport. They were all crammed up in the cab, and he was sitting too close next to Christy, Maggie on her left, and Mike was at the other side of the door. He didn't say anything, so instead he talked to the cab driver.
He made a cough-like-noise trying to make himself noticed, "Excuse me? Are you sure this is the way to the hotel?" but the man kept on driving ignoring his every words or simply not understanding a thing he was saying. "si" the man said in Italian with a whole bunch of words that Marcus did not seem to understand whatsoever."La Rosa sul fiume? Marcus asked again, the man smiled and kept on driving. Everyone unaware for the moment that the cab driver was driving the longest way in an attempt to charge them more.