She leaves and I’m back to square one on my hunt for Benito. I leave the Farentinos’ house and look for him outside on the street.
He’s nowhere.
I follow the street down toward the center of town. Despite the fact that a sizeable amount of La Musa’s population is at the party I just left, there’s still a lot of people out enjoying the warm summer night. I check the patio at Bar Musa in case he decided he needed a stronger drink than the wine his mother was serving, but he’s not there.
I head toward the town’s center and spot a man sitting on the steps of theduomo. He’s rolling up the sleeves of his shirt—it’s Benito.
I walk over to him, though now that I’ve found him, I can’t remember why it was so urgent. “Hey,” I say.
He looks up at me. He smiles. “Hey.”
“Can I. . .?” I gesture toward the spot next to him on the steps.
“Please.”
The sunset’s only just forming, but it looks to be spectacular with orange and purple rays casting across the sky, reflecting the brilliance of the town. “I love it here,” I say.
Benito laughs. “Good, considering all you’ve been through.”
“When I got here, I didn’t think it was possible to feel anything other than anger and grief for what I thought my life should be like. Now, I’m excited for the future again, but I’m also so happy to live in the present. It’s changed my perspective on how to live my life.” I roll my head back, embarrassed. “Oh my god. I sound like one of those women in all those movies about Italy.”
“Is that such a bad thing?” he asks.
I look at him. He’s so stunning, especially now with the light illuminating him. “It’s not. It’s very much not.”
We sit silently for a moment. Two little kids skip across the piazza, gelato dripping down from their cones to their elbows while their parents run after them. A group of friends toast at the Bar Musa patio, their wine glasses clinking.
I turn to Benito. He rests his hand on top of mine. “You’re going back, aren’t you?”
Tears well in my eyes. I wasn’t expecting to feel so emotional about this. “I am,” I say. “I have to finishwhat I started.” I can’t work for Levi, obviously, but the texts and my loss can’t be the end of it for me. I have to try again, even if I fail. Even if I fail so horribly, I have to relive the same embarrassment over again. Making my mark on the world doesn’t have to be a smooth path.
A single tear falls down my cheek and Benito wipes it away, his own eyes starting to well. “Good,” he says. “I can’t wait to see what you do.”
I take his hand with both of mine. “I so badly wanted to be the person that stayed here with you. You have to know that. But I’m just not.”
“I know,” he says, his voice breaking at the ends of his words.
He wraps me into a hug, and I latch on to his sturdy shoulders, burying my face into his chest. I try to memorize the feeling of him against me, the smell of his cologne, his breath on the back of my neck.
We unwind ourselves and he brushes the remaining tears off my face. “Let me know where you end up?” I ask. He nods. “Maybe we’ll run into each other again someday.”
“Yeah,” Benito says. “That would be nice.”
“In bocca al lupo,” I say, forcing a smile out despite the tears.
He does the same. “In bocca al lupo,Izzy.”
I’m at peace as I make my way to the train station the next morning, the light barely risen above the horizon. Despite the early hour, it’s a beautiful midsummer morning. I’m sad to leave, even thoughI know it’s right. I’m sad to leave Benito, even though I know I can’t stay here. Maybe that’s the price of wanting what I want. Maybe I’m not meant to have a happy love life and professional success. And maybe that’s ok.
When I make it down the hillside to the station, the clock tower dings at the top of the hour. I still have a few minutes before the train is due. The countryside on the other side of the tracks is aglow with the early-dawn light, and I soak in these last precious moments of Umbria, taking one last deep breath of fresh Italian air.
I open Instagram on my phone. There’s a barrage of messages and notifications but I ignore them, instead clickingGo Live.
My face pops up on the screen in front of me, perfectly lit and shining.
“Hi, everyone,” I say, watching as the viewership count slowly ticks upward. Fifty viewers, then 100, then quickly climbing into the thousands. “It’s been a minute, I know.”
I pan the camera around me. “I wanted to show you all this beautiful place I’ve been calling home for the past few months. As I’m sure you’ve heard, this is La Musa. It’s been the perfect place for me to regroup and reset.”
