thought
of Francesco. The more I tried not to think about the married restaurateur, the more I focused on the guy I’d fallen for in
Italy more than a dozen years ago.
So at twelve fifteen, I finally snapped on my bedside light, got up, and walked into my living room. I switched on the lamp
on my desk and opened the bottom drawer. Slowly, I pulled out the small wooden keepsake box I hadn’t looked at since placing
it there years ago.
I sat down on the living room sofa with the box in my lap and cracked it open slowly, as if doing so with less caution would
invite my old life to come lumbering into my new one more quickly than I was prepared for.
The first thing I saw was the photo of Francesco, the last one I’d taken the morning I left Rome. I’d snapped the shot just
hours before I last saw him. It was my favorite picture of him. I had gotten up early that morning to pack the rest of my
things, most of which had migrated from my tiny dorm room to Francesco’s much larger apartment over the course of our two-month
relationship. I had set my neatly packed suitcases by the front door and had crept back into the bedroom to wake him. But
when I stepped through the doorway, he looked so cute tangled up in the sheets, his mouth just a little bit open, the muscles
in his bare, darkly tanned shoulders rippling perfectly, that I couldn’t resist grabbing my camera and snapping a shot. He
never knew I’d taken it, but I’d looked at it so many times, especially in that first year after leaving Rome, that the edges
were tattered and worn, and the photo looked many years older than it was.
Of course, the photo
was
old. In the thirteen years that had passed since my time in Rome, so much had changed.
I
had changed. As I started flipping through the rest of the photos, which I had never put in an album because it made me sad
to look at them, I marveled at how young and happy I had looked. I was like a different person. Not that I wasn’t happy here.
I was, of course. It was just that, in Rome, there was a lightness to my smile, a carefree look in my eyes. I looked so excited
to be there, so excited to be exploring the city, so excited to be on my own.
I flipped through various poses of me and Francesco at the Trevi Fountain, me and my roommate, Kara, at the Colosseum, me
and Francesco doing shots at his favorite bar near the Pantheon, me by myself outside the museum in Vatican City. I smiled
as I passed photos of me kissing Francesco on his smooth, darkly tanned cheek, or of me posing near his Vespa. I felt as though
I’d made a lifetime of memories in that summer. And yet there were only a few dozen photos to prove it. I’d been through them
so many times over the years that I almost didn’t know whether my memories of Rome were real or whether I was just remembering
the things that the pictures showed me.
I quickly flipped through the rest of the box. There was the diary I’d kept, the one I hadn’t looked at once since I returned.
There were ticket stubs from my train rides around Italy, brochures from the museums I’d visited, pressed sunflowers that
I’d picked by the side of the road in Tuscany. There was also the butterfly necklace that Francesco had given me two weeks
after we met. It was costume jewelry; he’d probably bought it for a few dollars from some guy on the street. But to me, it
might as well have been Tiffany silver and diamonds. I had stopped wearing it a year after I came home from Rome, eleven and
a half months after I’d stopped hearing from Francesco. It had almost completely fallen apart by then, anyhow.
I picked up the keepsakes one by one, letting the memories wash over me, and I studied the pictures for a long time. I had
almost forgotten how much I’d loved his bright green eyes, the way he’d furrow his brow when he was concentrating on something,
the way he’d wink at me when I said something funny or referenced a private joke
of Francesco. The more I tried not to think about the married restaurateur, the more I focused on the guy I’d fallen for in
Italy more than a dozen years ago.
So at twelve fifteen, I finally snapped on my bedside light, got up, and walked into my living room. I switched on the lamp
on my desk and opened the bottom drawer. Slowly, I pulled out the small wooden keepsake box I hadn’t looked at since placing
it there years ago.
I sat down on the living room sofa with the box in my lap and cracked it open slowly, as if doing so with less caution would
invite my old life to come lumbering into my new one more quickly than I was prepared for.
The first thing I saw was the photo of Francesco, the last one I’d taken the morning I left Rome. I’d snapped the shot just
hours before I last saw him. It was my favorite picture of him. I had gotten up early that morning to pack the rest of my
things, most of which had migrated from my tiny dorm room to Francesco’s much larger apartment over the course of our two-month
relationship. I had set my neatly packed suitcases by the front door and had crept back into the bedroom to wake him. But
when I stepped through the doorway, he looked so cute tangled up in the sheets, his mouth just a little bit open, the muscles
in his bare, darkly tanned shoulders rippling perfectly, that I couldn’t resist grabbing my camera and snapping a shot. He
never knew I’d taken it, but I’d looked at it so many times, especially in that first year after leaving Rome, that the edges
were tattered and worn, and the photo looked many years older than it was.
Of course, the photo
was
old. In the thirteen years that had passed since my time in Rome, so much had changed.
I
had changed. As I started flipping through the rest of the photos, which I had never put in an album because it made me sad
to look at them, I marveled at how young and happy I had looked. I was like a different person. Not that I wasn’t happy here.
I was, of course. It was just that, in Rome, there was a lightness to my smile, a carefree look in my eyes. I looked so excited
to be there, so excited to be exploring the city, so excited to be on my own.
I flipped through various poses of me and Francesco at the Trevi Fountain, me and my roommate, Kara, at the Colosseum, me
and Francesco doing shots at his favorite bar near the Pantheon, me by myself outside the museum in Vatican City. I smiled
as I passed photos of me kissing Francesco on his smooth, darkly tanned cheek, or of me posing near his Vespa. I felt as though
I’d made a lifetime of memories in that summer. And yet there were only a few dozen photos to prove it. I’d been through them
so many times over the years that I almost didn’t know whether my memories of Rome were real or whether I was just remembering
the things that the pictures showed me.
I quickly flipped through the rest of the box. There was the diary I’d kept, the one I hadn’t looked at once since I returned.
There were ticket stubs from my train rides around Italy, brochures from the museums I’d visited, pressed sunflowers that
I’d picked by the side of the road in Tuscany. There was also the butterfly necklace that Francesco had given me two weeks
after we met. It was costume jewelry; he’d probably bought it for a few dollars from some guy on the street. But to me, it
might as well have been Tiffany silver and diamonds. I had stopped wearing it a year after I came home from Rome, eleven and
a half months after I’d stopped hearing from Francesco. It had almost completely fallen apart by then, anyhow.
I picked up the keepsakes one by one, letting the memories wash over me, and I studied the pictures for a long time. I had
almost forgotten how much I’d loved his bright green eyes, the way he’d furrow his brow when he was concentrating on something,
the way he’d wink at me when I said something funny or referenced a private joke
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