Page 38 of The Road to You

LENA

T he car is packed, the sun is barely over the horizon, and everyone is in the courtyard like we’re leaving for a six-month expedition across the globe instead of a five-hour drive to Rome.

Michele’s mother hugs me for what feels like the hundredth time, whispering, “ Mangia bene, dormi bene, e ricordati che qui hai sempre una casa. ” Eat well, sleep well, and remember, you always have a home here.

My throat tightens.

She tucks something else into my arms, another bag. “ Focaccia , the one you like. And some taralli . And this olive oil is from our own trees. Don’t let airport security take it, eh?”

I laugh, but my eyes are stinging. “ Grazie , really. I don’t even know how to say thank you for everything.”

“Say it by coming back,” she says, cupping my face and caressing it like I’m her daughter.

She has no idea what this means to me. It feels like I’m not only leaving Puglia and Italy soon, but I’m leaving behind Michele and a new family that accepted me as their own.

I’ve never felt so emotionally unstable in my entire life, and I barely manage to keep my tears at bay.

When I came to Italy a few months ago, I thought I would eat well, relax a bit, and take my life slowly. But I found more, so much more.

She squeezes my hands tightly before letting go, and I glance around the courtyard.

It smells like olive trees and morning dew.

It’s warm, like a memory you don’t want to let go of.

Michele’s father hugs me with a firm but affectionate pat on the back.

Even Mariasole, Michele’s sister, has come down to say goodbye.

It’s surreal how loved I feel here. It’s as if I’ve slipped into someone else’s life and found it fits better than my own. Michele’s cousin, Martina, tears up as she waves a dishtowel like a flag. “Don’t forget us when you’re in Hollywood again!”

She makes me smile, and I blow her a kiss. “Only if you forget I was the one who beat you at burraco four times in a row.”

They all laugh. There are more hugs, more cheek kisses, more well wishes in fast, melodic Italian. I don’t catch every word, but I catch the meaning.

Love. Fondness. Belonging.

Way too soon, we’re walking toward the car, the trunk already full of bags and wrapped-up care packages. My arms are overflowing with food, my heart overflowing with something I don’t have the words for.

I glance at Michele. He’s quiet, too quiet.

He is not the playful, talkative, teasing version of himself that comes out around his family. His shoulders are tense as he loads the last bag, like he’s bracing for something heavy. I understand his feelings, because they’re the same ones that weigh in my chest.

Once we’re in the car, and the gravel crunches beneath the tires, I turn toward him. The road winds ahead, but I watch his profile instead.

“You’re quiet,” I say.

He hums in response, eyes on the road. I understand being sad because you’re leaving your family, but he’s not disappearing from the world; he’s just accompanying me to Rome. He seems almost angry, and I don’t understand this reaction from him.

“You’ve never been this quiet with your family around. Did I do something? Are you mad I’m dragging you away from them?”

His grip on the steering wheel tightens for half a second before he releases it. He forces a smile, but it’s the kind that barely touches his eyes. “Everything’s fine, Lena.”

I know it’s not. I also know that this journey is coming to an end, and my heart is torn, but I’m not getting angry. I’m just trying to figure out what to do to survive.

“Michele,” I say gently, “you’re a terrible liar.”

He exhales, slow and heavy, but doesn’t answer immediately.

“I just don’t want to talk about it, Lena,” he finally says in a whisper, letting me see the Michele I’ve come to know. The caring, sweet one.

I can do that. I can give him the time he needs to process everything that’s happened in the last few days.

I let the silence hang between us like a question neither of us wants to answer.

Outside the window, the landscape shifts from rows of olive trees to busier streets, from the peace of the masseria to the sound of other cars.

I already miss the courtyard, the clink of plates, his mother’s singing in the kitchen, the warmth of that house, which felt like it had roots, history, and love in its walls.

But the silence inside the car is louder than anything outside, and it tells me something else: this summer, whatever it was, whatever it became, is ending, and what waits ahead in Rome feels different.

More like reality. Definitely like goodbye. I don’t know yet if I’m ready for either.

The countryside rolls by in shades of gold and green, but I hardly see it.

The road trip to Rome is silent. Not the kind of comfortable silence we’ve shared before, when words weren’t necessary and his hand rested on my thigh and we laughed when a song we both loved came on the radio.

This silence is suffocating.

Michele keeps his eyes on the road, one hand on the wheel, the other fidgeting on his knee.

I keep thinking he’ll say something. A joke, a sigh, a comment about the sheep crossing the road an hour ago.

But nothing comes. I don’t know what to say either.

What do you say to a man who said I love you, and you said it back, and that you are leaving for good?

There are no words that can fill the silence between us, as there are no words to fill the emptiness carved in my chest.

The hum of the tires on the asphalt fills the space between us, louder than it should be. Every kilometer we drive feels like peeling away from something I’m not ready to leave. It’s strange how something can feel so much like the beginning and the end at the same time.

I glance at him, hoping to catch his eyes, but he doesn’t look at me. He’s somewhere else entirely. And that, more than anything, makes the ache spread through my whole body. Michele is not in this car with me. He is in a place I can’t reach, somewhere else entirely, that doesn’t include me.

I know what this is. It’s the unraveling. It’s the slow slipping of something beautiful through my fingers, like sand I can’t hold onto no matter how hard I try. It’s a feeling I’m finally experiencing in its full force, and it’s washing over me like a wave I can’t contain.

I always knew this summer had an expiration date.

We left Milan without a plan. We built a bubble out of sunrises and wine and midnight swims and mornings tangled in each other.

But real life was always waiting. Watching.

Tapping its foot. We pretended it wasn’t there.

We gave it our backs and laughed, ignored its calling.

But that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. We knew that at some point it would outrun us, but we thought we were faster, smarter, immune to its pull.

We were wrong.

I just didn’t expect it to hurt like this. I didn’t expect that I’d want to stay so badly. I didn’t expect him to mean so much to me.

Michele shifts in his seat, adjusting the hem of his T-shirt that is rising up, and I watch the way his jaw tightens. The way he doesn’t reach for my hand. The way he closes himself off.

Michele is slipping away from me, and I don’t know how to stop it.

I don’t even know if I should stop it. Even if I could, what’s the cost?

Maybe we prolong the ache a bit longer, hoping it will be better when our lives take two different paths?

It won’t get better, it will get ugly, because our frustration and resentment will get mixed in with the beautiful thing we have.

I want to treasure this summer in my heart as the best journey of my life.

I don’t want it to become something we fight over.

I turn to the window and press my forehead to the glass, hoping the coolness will calm the heat in my chest. But it doesn’t. The pressure there is sharp. Real. Like heartbreak already half-formed, waiting for the final blow.

I thought I was strong enough for this. I thought I could say goodbye when the time came, but I’m not ready. Not even a little. And I think, maybe for the first time, that I don’t want this summer to be the end of our story.