Around her, the station pulsed with life - travelers tugging suitcases over the uneven stones, lovers kissing with urgency, conductors calling out destinations in rapid Italian - but she stood still, frozen in the moment, her world narrowed to a single choice.
In her hand, slightly crumpled and warm from being held too tightly, was the letter he had written the night before. The edges were soft now, as if worn by emotion itself. Ink was smudged in places - maybe from his fingers, maybe from her tears. Though written in English, every line pulsed with his accent, those gentle turns of phrase that gave his words a kind of poetry. She could almost hear his voice in them - low, unsure, sincere - trying to shape a future out of a goodbye.
She had read it at least a dozen times since waking. "'If I had met you sooner...'" it began, and her heart clenched at the weight of what might have been. The rest of the letter was both a confession and a plea - not for her to stay, but simply to remember. It wasn't dramatic or grandiose. He hadn't begged her. He didn't ask her to give up everything and remain in Florence. He merely told the truth - that she had changed something in him, and that he didn't know what to do with that except write it down and hope it mattered.
She folded the letter gently, reverently, pressing it to her chest as though that might somehow keep him closer, just a little longer. The paper trembled in her hand, the way her heart did beneath her coat.
Before arriving at the station, she had lingered in the stillness of her hotel room. The space felt hollow without him, though he had never actually stayed there. The curtains moved gently in the breeze from the slightly ajar window, letting in the scents of espresso and rising bread from the café downstairs. She had sat on the narrow windowsill with a lukewarm cup in her hand, watching Florence wake up - mopeds zipping by, a woman walking her dog, a man in a crisp suit arguing on his phone. The world was moving, just as it always had, and just as she was expected to.
Her suitcase sat zipped and upright at the foot of the bed, sterile and final. The sound of the wheels dragging across the tile floor echoed like a goodbye. It had all felt surreal - leaving a city that had begun to feel like a chapter she never meant to write but couldn't stop rereading. A city that would never be hers entirely, but where something sacred had been unearthed.
He had walked her there that morning, not quite touching her but close enough to feel the electricity between them. Their hands had brushed - once, twice - like the beginning of a sentence neither of them had the courage to finish. She had wanted to reach for him, to hold on, but it felt like doing so might unravel her resolve completely.
"I'll write," she had whispered, not trusting herself to say anything more.
"I know," he'd replied, his voice quieter than the street noise around them. He had looked at her like he was memorizing the details - the way her scarf curled around her neck, the shape of her mouth when she was trying not to cry, the faint tremble in her hands. His eyes searched hers, not for permission, but for something permanent. And maybe that was the cruelest part - that neither of them could promise permanence.
Now, standing on the platform, she felt the pull of two worlds. One where life continued as planned - meetings and deadlines, family dinners and familiar subway routes. The other, a quieter world, painted in watercolor tones and Italian syllables, where love had bloomed unexpectedly, without warning or logic. Where moments were stolen in museums and on bridges, over plates of pasta and between shared glances in crowded piazzas.
The final boarding call echoed through the station. A conductor waved passengers toward the doors. Her train - the one that would take her to Rome, and then eventually to New York - hissed again, impatient.
Her fingers tightened around the letter. Behind her, the voice of a little boy rang out, laughing as he chased pigeons across the platform. A woman shouted his name, annoyed and amused. Somewhere nearby, an elderly couple kissed like teenagers, completely unbothered by the world around them. Life was happening, as it always did.
And yet, for her, time had slowed. Each second dragged like a question.
Could she stay?
What would staying even look like? She had a job waiting, a family expecting her return, a future carefully outlined like a travel itinerary. Florence wasn't home. He wasn't certainty. He was risk and poetry, late-night conversations and soft kisses on narrow bridges. He was possibility. And possibility was terrifying.
A breeze moved through the station, carrying with it the scent of roasted coffee and the faintest hint of his cologne - or maybe she imagined that. Her lips parted, almost calling out his name, almost stepping back from the train, almost choosing him.
But almost wasn't enough.
With trembling legs, she took one step toward the train. Then another.
She didn't cry - not until she found her seat and the train pulled away, Florence shrinking in the distance. Only then did she let herself fold over the letter, clutching it like a life raft. Silent tears traced her cheeks as she stared out the window, the landscape blurring past like memory itself.
Florence was behind her.
New York ahead.
But her heart?
It was somewhere in between