I met Matteo in Florence.
Or rather, he met me.
I was standing at the edge of Ponte Santa Trinita, eating a cup of gelato I didn't even want—just trying to feel something sweet. The sun was setting, turning the Arno River into a liquid mirror. My heart was quiet, but not in a peaceful way. More like a vacuum—too still, too silent.
He tapped my shoulder with a crooked smile and asked, in accented English,
"Is it better than heartbreak?"
I laughed before I knew why. The spoon slipped from my hand and landed on the cobblestones. He bent down to pick it up, but instead of handing it back, he tossed it into the trash nearby.
"You need a fresh start," he said. "Even in spoons."
And somehow, that was the start of us.
He was tall, golden-skinned, wore linen like a poem. He smelled like orange peel and tobacco. Spoke with his hands, touched with his eyes. He moved with the kind of confidence that didn't ask for permission—and yet, he paused for mine at every turn.
I told myself I wasn't looking for anything. I was tired. Burnt out. Traveling alone for once—not to prove anything, not to post anything. Just to pause. Just to breathe. Just to remember what it felt like to be somewhere new without needing to explain why.
But Matteo didn't feel like noise. He felt like music.
He asked about the books I carried in my bag, not my job title.
He didn't ask me what I did—he asked me what made me feel alive.
And for once, I didn't have a curated answer.
We wandered through Mercato di Sant'Ambrogio in the mornings, our fingers brushing as we shared bites of pecorino and cherry tomatoes still warm from the sun. He introduced me to words I'd never heard and flavors I'd never tasted. He kissed me in alleys that smelled like garlic and rain, like history and something else I didn't have a word for.
He'd say things like, "Don't take a photo—this is only for us."
And I listened.
Put the phone away.
Let myself be touched without a caption.
One afternoon, we took the train to a small beach town where he said the waves "had the mood of a jazz trumpet." We swam until our skin pruned, then lay on our backs, salt drying on our skin. He reached over, traced a constellation on my arm, and said, "You feel like someone I dreamed of when I was too young to know what I was dreaming."
It was beautiful in the way vacation flings are supposed to be: uncomplicated, unbothered, undeniably temporary.
But that didn't stop me from hoping.
Not for forever.
Just for longer.
He called me "luminous." I told him he was a walking cliché.
We laughed.
We kissed.
We forgot about time.
But time didn't forget about us.
One night, we lay tangled in a bed that didn't belong to either of us, and he said,
"After next week, I'll be in Portugal. Then Greece. Maybe Berlin."
I smiled.
Nodded.
Pressed my cheek to his shoulder and swallowed the ache rising in my throat.
I knew this was never going to be mine.
He was a passport stamp, not a foundation.
But still—I whispered, "What if I came with you?"
He paused. Kissed my forehead. Said nothing.
That silence was the most honest thing either of us had said.
Later that week, I got an email from my boss: a prestigious offer in Singapore. Double the pay. Global visibility. A chance to lead a division that would practically write my future for me.
And for the first time in my life—I didn't want it.
Not because I wanted him.
But because I didn't want to keep running in heels toward goals that never held me.
Matteo didn't make me want to escape my life.
He just reminded me that I already had.
I walked alone to Piazzale Michelangelo the next morning, taking the long path up with aching legs and a restless heart. At the top, I sat beside a group of Filipino tourists laughing and posing in front of the Duomo down below.
One of them caught my eye and said, "Ate, picture po?"
I took their photo. Smiled. Let the sound of Taglish wrap around me like a shawl from home.
Afterward, I ordered cappuccino and pandoro from a small café and listened to the street musicians play "La Vie en Rose" on a violin so soft it felt like silk.
I realized I didn't need a man, a job, or even a city to feel chosen.
I just needed to choose myself.
As the sun dipped low, turning the city golden again, I wrote in my notebook:
This time, I won't confuse magic with meaning.
This time, I'll enjoy the moment without needing it to become a map.
This time, I'll be the one I come home to.
I never saw Matteo again.
But sometimes, when I drink coffee slowly or catch my reflection in an unfamiliar mirror, I think of that bridge, that gelato, that moment I laughed before I knew why.
And I know now: it wasn't because he was special.
It was because, for the first time in a long time, I had made space to be surprised.