the road to where

February 1993 • Milan, Italy ᥫ᭡

Marisa, twenty something, brimming with ambition, is en route to France for work. She works in publishing, and maybe this promotion that's on the horizon will finally be the golden ticket that spirals her into a better life.

But the universe makes other plans for her. Plans in the form of airport chaos and a man who looks like he was designed in a lab for the sole purpose of being her next romantic distraction. Decorated with an ambiguous accent and just enough aloofness to be irritating... or maybe just French. And of course, she finds him at the very moment she's trying (and failing) to locate both her inner peace and her passport.

Marisa is not the type to fall for foreigners in international terminals. She's a pragmatist with a healthy mistrust of attractive men with high cheekbones and sultry eyes who smell faintly of mystery. And yet, there's something about this stranger, something infuriatingly magnetic, that irremediably pulls her in... until a connection forms. But wait for the moment she realises that maybe he was too good to be true, and that she should've just listened to her gut and not bet a single paper clip on that handsome stranger.

What follows is not love at first sight. It's far messier than that. It's stolen glances and shared silences. It's the kind of connection that makes just five minutes apart feel too long. Emotionally constipation at its finest. The kind of thing that's definitely not love... until it inconveniently is.

Is it?

I don't know. So, sit back. Buckle in. And prepare for turbulence. Not just the kind that rattles the plane, but the kind that stirs something deeper. This isn't just a story about almost missed flights and found people.