He turned the corner that Monday night, Birkenstocks traversing the gravel of the street in front of my new home for the summer, and I saw his head of wild curls for the first time in person. I had had another Tinder date here only three days before, drinking wine on the patio, laughing at things lost in translation, and stealing green walnuts from the neighbor’s tree in the dark, but instantly this felt different. A giant smile took over my face as our eyes locked. Suddenly nervous and embarrassed, I flushed and turned away as I invited him in.

It was only my tenth day in Cerretino, a tiny village in the foothills of Monte Amiata. I had spent the year getting my master’s in world food cultures in Piemonte and was in Tuscany for my internship, documenting local food traditions and writing a cookbook of recipes from an osteria in the next town over. With no car, no Wi-Fi, and cell service only available if I walked outside of the adorable stone cottage I was staying in, I was bored out of my mind. “Hmm, he could be a fun distraction in all my downtime,” I thought to myself.

I have a physical type, and he was definitely not it. He’s not conventionally handsome with his big nose that’s somehow always slightly sunburnt, smoke-stained teeth, and disheveled, creative-type aura, but there was something about the smile lines that creased under the outer rims of his eyes, his measured but nonchalant manner, and the way he wore his wrinkled linen shirt unbuttoned a few too many notches so that I would catch glimpses of his toned, boxer’s chest, that I couldn’t take my eyes away from.

We sat on the teak folding chairs on my patio, trying to fit our glasses of wine, packs of cigarettes, and bowls of spuntini on the tiny Ikea side table between us. He awkwardly handed me a gift — not the usual bottle of wine from “my place,” but a haphazard ball of aluminum foil that contained a gigantic bud of amazing-smelling marijuana. “I grew it myself,” he beamed.

We got high and talked for hours as the sun went down. He told me about the documentaries he’d made as a filmmaker (probably shitty YouTube videos, I remembered thinking at the time), the way he decided to leave his last relationship because he didn’t want the traditional life of marriage and kids (a completely similar story to mine), the trauma of his parents’ divorce when he was in his twenties, and his time living in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Australia. “Have you ever been to America?” I asked as we discussed our various travels. “No never,” he replied, “but I will one day, I’ve always wanted.”

Rita, the lovely neighbor up the alleyway—who, despite knowing her for only a couple of days would invite me up for a coffee that would turn into a bottle of her homemade Prosecco and then send me home with armfuls of vegetables from her orto—was having a get-together on her terrace, and all of a sudden, an ambulance showed up, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Concerned, I got up to see what was happening, and when I turned around, he was standing just a few feet away staring at me with such intense longing in his eyes.

My body pulsed. I had never felt such a visceral, physical need to touch someone in my whole life. I took a step forward and slowly ran my hand up the skin on his chest I had been trying, however unsuccessfully, to not stare at all evening. And then he kissed me. His thick fingers, rough with calluses from his guitar, grazed my face and buried themselves in my long hair. I melted into him.

We made love intensely, the moon and the lantern outside my bedroom window throwing our shadows against the wall as we moved together, the sounds of trickling water from the village fountain as our soundtrack. He whispered, “Good girl,” into my ear as I came.

We took a break to smoke another joint and a couple of cigarettes, him in nothing but his underwear and me in my black lace wrap sitting on the patio in the moonlight, though someone could walk by at any moment. He silently looked at me like I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and I watched as he got hard again, falling out the leg of his boxers. I led him back upstairs to bed and we slept for an hour or two before the sun came up, wrapped in each other’s arms.

He left in the morning to drive the 45 minutes back to his home in Chianciano, but surprisingly, he called me along the way. “Erica, I need to tell you something.”

“Oh no,” I thought. My heart sank and my stomach felt queasy.

He could sense my dread through the phone. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious,” he assured me. “It’s just that I didn’t give you the full truth when you asked me if I had been to America. I mean, it wasn’t a lie — I haven’t ever been to America. But I leave tomorrow morning to spend the next month there shooting a documentary.”

“Wow, okay. Well, that’s exciting for you!” I exclaimed. My visions of spending lazy August weekends together in bed and exploring the ancient towns between our places evaporated.

“I know, it’s bad timing. But I need to tell you that I never expected to meet someone like you, Erica from America,” he mumbled in his Tuscan accent. “It surprised me quite a lot. I thought after my latest period my heart was becoming like a stone and I could not believe to find ‘love’ again or be willing to believe that it was possible to feel more than wanting to just have sex. So I’ve been looking for anything and I stumbled upon Cerretino. And there you were smiling and waiting at the door with your big, beautiful blue eyes. You made my heart skip the beat. I felt like home.”

“This caught me off guard too,” I admitted, flabbergasted at this strange situation I had found myself in. “I feel the same way.”

“I don’t like the idea that I won’t see you again. And I know it’s half crazy and maybe too rushed, but can I come back to see you again today, after I get all prepared for my trip? I would have to leave at 2:45 a.m. for Fiumicino, but in this way, we could spend another beautiful night together.”

So that evening he returned to Cerretino. It was even more passionate now that we knew each other better, admitted our feelings, and had started to learn each other’s bodies. I felt absurd for crying as he left, already aching for the touch of someone I had only just met.

We talked non-stop over the next month as he made his way from state to state shooting interviews for his documentary and exploring my home country. I woke up every day to a

“Buongiorno Erica 😘 ” message on my phone. He kept me from my internship tasks with tales

of hot dogs in Central Park, running up The Rocky Stairs like he had always wanted to do since childhood, and how the vast, Alaskan wilderness made him feel like he was in “The Call of the Wild.” On the road in between I learned about his dream to be the next Scorsese, his love of blues music, and read his screenwriting bible for the movie he was writing.

What was supposed to be a lusty summer distraction quickly grew into a full-fledged crush, and then a guarded form of love. I began to allow myself to make plans for all the things we would do when he returned, even envisioning what a possible life together might look like. And at the end of the month, after a frustrating 24 hours of canceled and delayed flights, he landed back in Rome. He dropped his things at his apartment, had lunch with his mother, sister, and two beautiful nieces, and then immediately jumped in the car that he shares with his mom — despite emphatically claiming not to be a mammone — to come see me. At the bottom of my stairs, he held me and it felt like we had known each other forever.

Between my internship obligations and the massive amount of work he had to catch up on after a month abroad, we only got to see each other for one more long weekend in his slovenly apartment where we only left his bed to eat. And then, all of a sudden, before it ever truly began, it ended in a fiery blaze of classic self-sabotage through infidelity on his part, disbelief and heartbreak on mine, just days before we were supposed to spend a romantic long weekend together.

As I write this, it actually feels as if I had made the whole thing up.

But it happened. And only because I finally let myself be open to it after so many years of not letting myself trust or feel. Though it was short-lived, it was real and it was rare, and I won’t allow myself to regret it.

Because isn’t that how you know you’re living life right? You take chances, feel your feelings even if they hurt, and collect the memories. And I will never forget the way he made me feel that first night, under the Tuscan moon.