Page 43 of The Road to You

LENA

I don’t sleep the night before I book the flight.

The script I printed out sits open on my hotel desk.

Its pages are dog-eared and full of my scribbles, as if my handwriting could anchor me to this moment, to this city, to this version of my life, to Michele.

Now that reality is sinking in, my chest is becoming increasingly tighter, and I don’t know how to stop it from imploding.

I’m certain, at some point, I won’t be able to breathe anymore.

Yet the world is spinning again, fast and loud, and I can’t press pause. It doesn’t wait for me, for us, for this life we created inside this summer bubble. It forces us to spin with it. It doesn’t care if we are keeping up or stumbling to jump into the reality that is threatening to squash us.

The next morning, I book my return flight to Los Angeles. My heart is heavy during every step of the process.

When I tell Michele, we’re sitting at the little café near the hotel, the one with the chipped tables and terrible coffee that somehow became ours . I didn’t want to do it in such a public place, but the heaviness between us is almost unbearable, and I can’t drag this moment out any further.

His eyes narrow, and for a moment, I wonder if he heard me right.

“I leave Friday,” I say again, softer this time.

He sets down his cup too hard. The ceramic clinks against the saucer. “Then I’m coming with you.”

The words are so instantaneous, so impulsive, they knock the air out of me.

“Michele…” I start, but he’s already shaking his head.

“I’ll figure things out from there. I can have the surgery in the States, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to be apart.”

God, a part of me wants to say yes. Wants to scream it, but the part of me that has always survived, always protected the dream when everything else fell apart, finds her voice first.

“No,” I whisper. “You can’t.”

My voice comes out strained, mirroring the vise that is constricting my chest. I see how much he is grasping at this dream, not wanting to let go.

He doesn’t want this to end, us to end, but I can’t see a way out of it.

It would be unfair for both of us to drag this out until it tears us apart, transforming something perfect into something ugly.

He looks like I just slapped him. “Why not?”

I lock my eyes on his hurting ones, and my heart screams to listen to him, almost drowning the reasonable voice in my head.

“Because you need to have that surgery. You need to heal ,” I say firmly

“I can heal in LA,” he says in a rush, but I can hear the doubt in his voice.

We both know that if he wants to have a chance to climb up to the top teams, he has to be where the top teams are, be visible, remind them how much he is worth, how his healing is progressing.

And that place is not Los Angeles. It’s here, in Italy, where everyone lives and breathes soccer.

I shake my head. “That’s not the point.”

He’s quiet now, watching me. He knows what the reason is, but he doesn’t want to admit it. Part of me would like to say “fuck it, we’ll figure it out,” but it’s not a solution, it’s only delaying the inevitable.

“I can’t be the regret of your life, Michele,” I say, voice trembling. “I won’t be the reason you didn’t fight for your career.”

His brows knit together. “You wouldn’t be.”

His voice is more certain now, and I know that he really believes it. He is sure he won’t regret this choice, but I’ve thought a lot about what I would do if I decided to stay instead of flying back, and I felt a part of me die.

“You say that now. But what about two years from now? Five? When you’re watching a game and your chest aches because you could have been out there. When you wonder if you gave it up for someone who was never supposed to stay.”

He winces. “That’s not fair.”

“No, it’s just the truth. Do you think I haven’t considered the idea of staying in this country with you?” A sad smile graces my lips when I see the surprise on his face.

“Yes, I thought about it, and I realize that’s not fair to me either.

I could stay, try to learn Italian, and try to rebuild my career in the Italian movie industry, but it means throwing away what I worked for my entire life.

Because I can’t just waltz in here and assume I’ll find someone to give me a chance to prove I’m good at acting in Italian.

It doesn’t work like that. And I can’t keep working from here with LA-based directors either, because like you, I need to be there to be seen. ”

I reach across the table and place my hand over his. He is warm, familiar, and my heart cracks. He doesn’t say a word, and I suspect he is trying to keep himself together, not let his emotions overwhelm him.

“I love you,” I whisper. “God, I love you so much it hurts. But we knew it would end. We said it, remember? That summer has to end at some point.”

He doesn’t speak. Just stares at our hands like he’s memorizing the way they fit.

“We’re living two different lives,” I say. “And we can’t pretend that love is going to erase the distance between them.”

He pulls his hand away, slowly. Pain flickers in his eyes, but then he nods.

Once.

And somehow, that hurts worse than anything else.

We don’t talk much after that. Back at the hotel, the silence settles between us like a blanket too heavy to breathe under, but when his fingers find mine in the dark, I turn to him.

My lips meet his, tentatively at first, but when he wraps his arms around my waist, I melt into his embrace and tighten my arms around him. I need it, I need this contact, this tightness between us, where no space is left between our bodies.

There’s no rush, no firestorm. Just a slow, aching kind of tenderness.

His hand runs up my back like he’s memorizing the shape of me, every curve, every dip, every place he’s touched before, but now treats like something he’ll never touch again.

My skin tingles beneath his fingers, not from desire alone, but from the weight of what this is.

The last time.

The realization lands somewhere deep in my chest and cracks open a pain I didn’t think I was ready for.

I press my forehead to his, our breath mingling.

His eyes are open, searching mine, and I see the grief, the want, the helplessness.

He doesn’t say a word, but he doesn’t have to.

I feel it in every kiss, every lingering touch, every soft stroke of his thumb across my cheek. It’s all there, his love, his goodbye.

When we undress each other, it’s quiet. No teasing, no banter, no playful looks. Just reverence. He peels away each layer of clothing like it’s sacred, like beneath them is something fragile and precious. And maybe it is. Maybe we are fragile in this moment.

He lies beside me and pulls me to him, our legs tangling, our bodies pressing together in a way that feels less like lust and more like a plea, a promise, a memory in the making.

The room is dim, the city outside muffled by thick glass and the hour of night. But in here, it’s a different world. In here, nothing exists except the warmth of his body and the rhythm of our hearts pounding against each other like they’re trying to find the same beat.

We make love slowly, deliberately. There’s nothing frantic or urgent. Just a shared desperation not to let go too soon. I clutch him like I can anchor time, but it keeps slipping away so fast it takes my breath away.

He kisses the curve of my shoulder, the edge of my jaw, the space just above my heart.

I kiss him back everywhere I can reach, afraid I’ll forget the taste of his skin, the way he sighs when I whisper his name.

There’s something mournful in the way we move, like we’re both already grieving what we haven’t lost yet, but know we will.

I close my eyes and let it all wash over me: the love, the loss, the everything . He moves like he’s trying to keep a piece of me inside him. Like he already knows he’s losing me, and I hold him like I can stitch us together with my bare hands.

When it ends, we stay like that, wrapped in each other, breathing the same breath.

I want to speak, to say something meaningful, something that might make it hurt less.

But the words are tangled somewhere between my ribs, and I can’t get them out.

I think if I do, I’ll cry. And if I start crying, I might never stop.

So I press my lips to his bare chest and just hold him tighter. This is goodbye, and neither of us says it, because saying it would make it real. And I’m not ready, maybe I never will be.

Somewhere between the quiet breaths and tangled sheets, I realize that loving him might be the most beautiful heartbreak I’ll ever have.

The car ride to the airport is a graveyard of unsaid words.

The windows are cracked open, letting the warm Italian air sweep through, but it doesn’t clear the heaviness from the car.

Michele’s hand is on the gear shift, his jaw clenched, eyes locked on the road.

I sit beside him, spine straight, hands fidgeting in my lap like they’re searching for something to hold on to, but there’s nothing left to grab, no moment to stretch, no miracle to delay the inevitable.

I’m leaving, and he’s not coming with me.

The highway signs flash past us like countdowns. Rome Fiumicino. Departures. Terminal.

I want to scream. I want to beg time to stop, to stretch this ride out forever. To never reach the place where I have to let go, but instead, I stay quiet. We both do.

Inside the airport, the fluorescent lights loom above us, too bright, too sterile. The scent of roasted espresso and cold metal fills my lungs, and still, I can’t breathe right.

Michele walks with me through the check-in process, silent as a shadow. When I lift my suitcase onto the scale, his fingers brush mine. I pretend it doesn’t shatter something in me.

We say nothing, but we move like we’ve done this before, as if we know how to survive a goodbye. But we don’t. Not like this.

When we reach the TSA line, it feels like standing at the edge of a cliff. One more step and I’ll be falling. I turn to him, and for a moment, we just look . His eyes are dark and wet, his face tight with the effort of staying composed.

He steps closer, and then his hands are on my cheeks, warm and trembling slightly, like he’s cradling something delicate. Like he’s holding a memory he never wants to lose. His lips brush against mine in a soft, slow, reverent kiss.

It’s not a kiss goodbye. It’s one full of if onlys . If only we had met at a different time. If only love were enough. If only summer never had to end.

I don’t pull away. I let myself live in this moment. Let the tears slip down my cheeks as he kisses them away without saying a word.

When we reluctantly part, I can’t speak. My throat is sand, and my heart is glass. I step into the TSA line, handing over my passport with numb fingers. I glance back once and twice because I have to , because leaving him behind feels like tearing out part of myself.

He’s still standing there, his arms hanging uselessly by his sides, his eyes locked on mine. Neither of us waves. We just look like we’re burning the image of each other into our skin.

Then the line moves, and I walk forward. Each step hurts more than the last. When I reach the metal detector and turn one last time, he’s still there, but the moment I step through, he’s gone.

Out of sight. Out of reach. I don’t make it five feet before the tears come again. I don’t try to stop them. My vision blurs, and my heart aches so painfully that I clutch my carry-on to stay upright. The ache is too big for my body.

I left him behind, and the sound of my heart breaking is the only thing I hear as I walk toward my gate.