Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir by Amanda Knox Read Free Book Online Page B

curb outside, kissing. Giacomo and Meredith stood slightly apart from us, entwined.
    When we got home, Bobby followed me to the front door.
    “Do you want to come in?” I asked.
    “Are you sure?”
    I nodded. This was the first time I’d invited a guy into my bed since I’d arrived in Perugia. We went to my room and had sex. Then we both passed out.
    The next morning I got up before he did, got dressed, and went to make myself breakfast. Bobby came into the kitchen a few minutes later.
    We were eating cookies when Laura came out of her bedroom. I’d never entertained a lover at the villa for breakfast, and it was awkward, despite Laura’s proclaimed sense of easy sexuality. All three of us tried to ignore the feeling away.
    After breakfast Bobby left to return to Rome. I walked him to the door. He smiled, waved, and walked away.
    I didn’t feel the same regret I’d had after sex with Mirko, but I still felt the same emptiness. I had no way of knowing what a big price I would end up paying for these liaisons.
    A few minutes later, Meredith came upstairs. She and Giacomo had slept together for the first time, and she was giddy. It had been a wild night at No. 7, Via della Pergola, but it turned out to be a one-time thing.
    A couple of days later Juve told me that Patrick wasn’t entirely happy with my job performance and wanted to meet with me on the Duomo steps. I knew I had been slow delivering cocktails and that I wasn’t attracting customers as they’d hoped.
    To my surprise, Patrick was kind. “You really need time to pick up waitressing,” he said. “On busy nights I need someone who’s more experienced. You can keep working the slow nights—Tuesdays and Thursdays—if you’d like. That way you’ll be learning.”
    I was relieved. I liked the purposeful feeling I got from working, but I knew this wasn’t the right job for me. I’d already started leaving my name at bookstores and other places around town.
    I was just beginning my second month in Perugia, and I still felt uprooted from Seattle. But I felt I was finally starting to hit my groove. I recognized the faces I passed every day as I walked to and from school. More important, I felt that the choices I’d made were educating me. I just had to wait for what, and who, would come next.

 
    Chapter 5
    October 25–November 1, 2007
    B y chance.
    I found my roommates by chance. I saw a poster advertising a performance of a string and piano quintet by chance. I met Raffaele Sollecito by chance.
    On Thursday, October 25, Meredith and I went together to the University for Foreigners to hear Quintetto Bottesini. We sat together by the door of the high-ceilinged hall. During the first piece—Ástor Piazzolla’s “Le Grand Tango”—I’d just turned to Meredith to comment on the music when I noticed two guys standing near us. One was trim and pale with short, disheveled brown hair and frameless glasses. I was instantly charmed by his unassuming manner. I smiled. He smiled back.
    When Meredith left at intermission to meet friends for dinner, the guy walked up to me.
    “Are these seats open?” he asked in Italian.
    “Yes, please to sit,” I said in my imperfect Italian.
    “I’m Raffaele,” he said, switching to English.
    “Amanda.”
    Later I would wonder what would have been different if this hadn’t happened. What if Meredith had stayed at the concert? What if Raffaele had gotten there in time to get a seat? Would we have noticed each other? Would he, naturally shy, have introduced himself without the excuse of a needed chair? Would never knowing him have changed how I was perceived? Would that have made the next four years unfold differently? For me, maybe. For Raffaele, absolutely.
    But we did meet. And I did like him. Raffaele was a humble, thoughtful, respectful person, and he came along at the moment that I needed a tether. Timing was the second ingredient that made our relationship take off. Had it been later in the year, after I’d