By Katie Simon
On my first trip to Italy, I ate kiwis. They were soft as lips, the ones I wasn’t kissing—my boyfriend Michael’s back in New York. After three years together, I relished the feeling of a kiss from anything other than his lips.
The kiwis I ate in the morning at my B&B tasted tangy, enticing, unlike my breakfasts back home. The memory of their flesh slipping between my lips scratched at my mind for the rest of the morning and followed me as I went on long afternoon walks outside Verona.
One day I climbed a hill to a monastery and in its chapel I wrote myself a letter full of questions. Is it worth staying with Michael, despite my doubts? He was my first boyfriend, and I wondered what else was out there.
I wrote only questions; I already knew the answers.
My stomach grumbled. I walked down the hill.
I called the owner of my B&B for a ride from the bus station. It was hot, I was wearing jeans, unprepared for the heat of the trip.
“My son comes and get you,” she said.
I slid into the passenger seat of his car and felt a whoop in my stomach, like rushing sweet liquid. Continue Reading…