Page 44 of The Road to You

LENA

T he paparazzi lost interest weeks before I even landed back in LA.

The cheating scandal, the gossip, the screaming headlines, it all burned hot and fast and then vanished like a spark in dry grass.

That’s how it works here. Frenzy one day, forgotten the next.

By the time I stepped off the plane, I was yesterday’s story.

Still, I was glad I stayed longer in Italy.

I’m glad I stretched out those final days like silk slipping through my fingers, even if now, four months later, I wake up every morning with an ache in my chest that just won’t go away.

Even now, as I sit in the makeup trailer with a script full of scribbled notes and a heart that feels like it’s still bruising.

The mirror lights buzz softly above me, casting a golden glow over the counter cluttered with powders, brushes, water bottles, and the script open to today’s scene. It’s an emotionally brutal one, the kind of performance actors dream of, and all I feel is hollow.

I’m trying to focus, but my brain’s been foggy all morning. Too much weight pressing down on me. I pick up my phone to distract myself, scroll aimlessly, and then I do the thing I shouldn’t.

I stop on a photo.

It’s Michele, laughing in that unguarded way he has, surrounded by his friends in his parents’ backyard in Puglia.

There’s a bottle of wine on the table, and his cousin is mid-gesture, clearly telling a story with too much passion and too little accuracy.

But Michele is the center of it all. Head tilted back, eyes crinkled, a grin that could light up a city.

My thumb hovers over the screen, and the ache comes fast and sharp. A knot closes up my throat. God, it still hurts. Like he’s been carved into my bones and I can’t shake him loose.

“You okay, sweetheart?” Julia’s voice breaks gently into my spiral.

I glance up in the mirror. Julia’s been with me every day on set. Her hands are steady, her eyes warm, and she’s one of those women who knows when to talk and when to just quietly hand you a tissue.

I nod, but it’s weak. A shrug, more than anything. “Yeah. I’m just…” My voice cracks. I don’t even bother finishing the sentence.

She steps closer, peering at the photo over my shoulder, and makes a soft sound in the back of her throat. “He’s handsome. And that smile? That’s a man in love.”

I place the phone face down on the counter. “Yeah. He was.”

Julia doesn’t press. She dabs a bit of concealer under my eye with a featherlight touch, but I can feel her curiosity building.

“Why didn’t you try long distance?” she asks softly after a beat. “I mean…forgive me for prying, but it’s kind of obvious. You’re still in love with him.”

I inhale slowly. The air feels thick in my lungs. I hate how easily my eyes sting. “Because fairy tales don’t exist,” I whisper.

She pauses, sponge in hand. “That’s…bleak,” she says, not unkindly. “Especially coming from someone who makes a living pretending they do.”

I laugh, but it’s small, humorless. “Yeah, well…pretending is easy. Living it?” I shake my head.

“We live on different continents, Julia—different time zones. I’m here, working twelve-hour days on a set that’s chewing me up, and he’s over there, trying to put himself back together.

What were we supposed to do? Text good morning and hope it doesn’t fall apart? ”

She studies my face in the mirror. “But you don’t know that it would’ve fallen apart. You didn’t even try.”

“That’s the thing.” My voice is steadier now, but there’s something brittle underneath. “I didn’t want to try. Not because I didn’t love him, but because I did. Because I still do. I didn’t want to stretch something beautiful until it broke. I didn’t want to ruin it.”

Julia is quiet again. The room is filled with just the gentle tap of a brush against powder. She’s letting me speak, letting me spill.

“I want to remember him like that,” I continue. “Like in that photo: laughing, happy, full of life. Not through a screen at two a.m., fighting about missed calls and timing and not being able to touch him. I didn’t want to become his regret.”

I feel the tremble in my hands and press them into my thighs. “I didn’t want him to wake up someday and hate me for being the reason he gave up everything he worked for.”

Julia finally sets the brush down and turns me slightly in the chair to face her. “Maybe he wouldn’t have. Maybe he’d have chosen you anyway.”

I look at her, blinking away the tears threatening to spill.

“And maybe we’d have resented each other.

Or maybe we would’ve lasted three months and ended it over a bad phone connection and missed flights.

I didn’t want ‘what ifs.’ I wanted to leave it while it was still good.

While I could still close my eyes and remember what it felt like to fall in love under the Italian sun. ”

Julia tilts her head. “Do you still talk?”

I shake my head. “Not once. Not since the airport.”

“Do you think he moved on?”

That question slices deeper than I expect. “Maybe,” I whisper. “I hope he’s happy. I want that for him. But God, some nights I wish he’d call. Just once. Just to say he misses me too.”

Julia places a gentle hand on my shoulder. “You know, fairy tales…they’re not perfect. But sometimes, they find their way back around.”

I meet her eyes. “You really believe that?”

She gives me a small, knowing smile. “I work in a trailer where people play make-believe all day. But the realest love stories I’ve seen are the ones that don’t go according to script.”

I look down at my script, the one waiting for me to channel heartbreak I don’t have to fake.

Because I already feel it. Every day.