Napoli, Day Seven

 June 8, 2025

The End That Begins Everything

The morning came softly. There was no rush in our waking, just a shared understanding that time would move too fast, so we had to stretch it as gently and fully as we could. I had packed the night before, carefully and lovingly, like a ritual. My guides and maps, my gifts and little treasures: the red-and-white leaflets, the entry tickets from every sacred place, the tiny glass jars from Tenuta Doria, were now sealed in my suitcase, not as things, but as talismans. Carriers of this first voyage, this first lifetime inside a week.

He got ready quietly, smiling at me in that way that says everything without saying a word. The kind of smile that speaks of return, of trust, of yes I know you’ll come back here, and I’ll be here, waiting. A silent promise only two connected minds can offer, held between glances instead of syllables.

He had arranged a car to take me to the airport. The driver texted he’d be early, cutting our moments shorter than we had hoped. He carried the bags down the stairs. The city around us, usually so loud and full of voices, was still, hushed, as if Napoli itself had paused to honor the departure. A black Mercedes rolled up like in a movie. The driver stepped out, efficient and unaware that time had slowed for us.

He placed my suitcase in the trunk. I wanted to say: Please, go slowly, but the words stayed trapped between breath and lips. We kissed goodbye, but it wasn’t a kiss of absence, it was a kiss of fullness. A kiss that held every memory, every place we had stepped, everything we had become together. He stepped back toward the door of the building. We waved. Not goodbye. Never goodbye. Just: until the next beginning.

The car pulled away, taking me through the same route we had followed on the motorbike, the road that had once brought me into Naples, now taking me away from it. Familiar signs, gas stations, corners, views. I caught myself whispering goodbye to the city. But not with sorrow, with reverence. With a smile.

The airport was busy. I had checked in online, so there were no lines, no obstacles. Just the gentle passing of one stage into the next. At duty free, I picked my souvenirs with quiet joy: a box of mozzarella di bufala, chocolate candies for my two closest friends, a little something for my mother, and for myself a bag of Strega limoncello truffles. That taste would be a private indulgence in the weeks ahead, a slow way of holding onto him, to this.

He stayed with me, texting as I waited. He said he’d stay in Naples until my plane was in the sky. He did. Of course he did. That’s who he is. That’s what love looks like when it’s real. Greece was only an hour away, but my body hadn’t caught up to the idea of leaving. I was still in Via Toledo, in Spaccanapoli, on the Lungomare, in Paestum, under the burning sky of Pompei, inside the ruins of Villa dei Misteri, in Caserta Reggia, at Mamina, on a motorbike with him, in Campania, in his arms.

Thank you, EasyJet, for the small delay.

When the gate opened, I walked across the tarmac and climbed the stairs. The plane lifted, and Napoli was spread beneath me, glittering in the early light. I waved at Vesuvio, traced the Amalfi coast with my eyes. I was just there. I had been inside that world just an hour ago. I had loved inside that world.

Italy faded into the haze of morning sky. I opened the photo album on my phone. Hundreds of pictures. Temples and beaches, sunsets and forks of food. And us. So many pictures of us. I remembered every moment with a precision that only love gives. I closed my eyes, and for a few minutes I was back there not dreaming, not wishing but feeling. His presence still on my skin, in the beat of my heart. I opened my eyes and turned instinctively. Where is he? But of course, I already knew. In my heart. He’s coming with me to Athens. He’s riding the train with me home.

When I landed, I was smiling. I had so much love in my heart, a bittersweet tenderness in my chest, and that kind of quiet joy that doesn’t need words. I missed my train and waited at the station for 40 minutes. I didn’t mind. I sat down, opened the photos again, and the memories played through me like a song.

When I came out of the metro station in my neighborhood, something caught my eye: the church clock. The same one he had photographed six months ago. It showed the exact same time 16:40.

I stood there for a moment, still, almost reverent. Out of all the mysteries I’ve ever tried to decode, this one remains the most beautiful.

That day, back in November, he had come to Egaleo looking for something else entirely. Whatever it was, he didn’t find it. But before leaving, he stopped in front of the church and took a photo. A moment he thought was random. A landmark. An echo.

He never knew that just three blocks away, at that same hour, I was walking home from visiting an old friend I hadn’t seen in thirteen years. I had spoken words to myself that I hadn’t dared to say aloud before. I told myself: This is your wake-up call. A cycle has ended. Let the past rest. Remember who you are. Reconnect. Life will be beautiful from now on.

Perhaps he turned one street too early. Or maybe I paused too long at the corner. But there’s a chance, just a chance, that we crossed paths without knowing. That we brushed against each other in the invisible current of a city we both didn’t yet know we belonged to. That we were drawn together by something older than coincidence and wiser than logic.

Little did we know that on that exact day, something invisible was shifting. The photo, the time, the place had pressed a secret button in the mechanism of fate. It set in motion what would become us.

What we thought was lost was already turning toward love.

And so here I am, home, but not alone.

I carry him in my heart.
He carries me in his.

This is not the end. It’s the soft breath before the next chapter. It’s the comma before the most beautiful sentence yet.

Always and forever,
In this life and all the others 
There was a woman, and a man,
And the road between Napoli and Athens was never too long.
Because Love knows how to travel.
It never stays behind.
It always comes with you.