Cities of Love

The other day I was talking to my now amica mia Gioia, my Italian professor, and I told her something that came out almost instinctively: Paris is the city you go to for a breakup, and Rome is the city you fall in love in. She laughed, but I meant it. There is something about cities and the emotional roles they end up playing in our lives. It’s now 2026 and, for the record, I live in neither Rome nor Paris - yet. I live in Milano, which might be the unexpected third chapter in a story that has quietly been unfolding for twelve years now. A teenage love, if you want to call it that. One of those connections that refuses to disappear even when life insists on taking you in completely different directions.

We have both lived a lot since the day we met. Love, breakups, more love, more breakups. Different cities, different people, different lives. Broken legs, broken hearts. People who were just passing by and others who stayed for a little longer. Life, basically. But through all of it there has always been him - my someone in another city. Someone who somehow gives me a sense of comfort and a strange feeling of “as it has always been.” And I wouldn’t change that for anything.

My someone lives in Paris.
My someone landed in Milano yesterday.

Sometimes I genuinely wonder about the odds. What are the odds of meeting someone twelve years ago - when you were fifteen - in Boston, when you are from Spain and he is from France? And what are the odds that twelve years later you are still somehow connected. Not in the daily sense. Not even in the regular sense. But in this strange, raw, beautifully natural way where the bond just… exists. A connection that feels pure, uncomplicated and deeply human. The kind of connection where you simply appreciate the other person’s existence in your life.

I saw him yesterday and I can’t stop thinking about him. He texted me when he was boarding his flight to Milano and I replied five minutes later. Funny enough, we usually ghost each other for about five months before answering again. It sounds terrible, but somehow it’s just… cute. It’s our rhythm. Our very strange, very ours rhythm.

He is a Pisces. Or at least that’s what I was told. I honestly had - and still have - no idea what that meant until we looked it up. ChatGPT told us we could get along well - which made us laugh because, honestly, we didn’t need artificial intelligence to confirm something we had known for twelve years already. He doesn’t even call it Pisces, though. He calls it poisson.

The best part of it all, though, is our dynamic. When I was younger - very younger - I was completely head over heels in love with him. The kind of teenage love that feels enormous and dramatic and slightly unbearable. I remember landing back in Barcelona after Boston and crying on the plane because I hadn’t caught a flight straight to Paris to see him. Teenage Blanca was a lot. But as the years went by, something beautiful happened. The intensity softened into something calmer but somehow deeper. Whenever I would go back to Paris, I would text him. We would meet. And we would talk for hours.

Hours.

About everything and nothing. Life, people, cities, dreams, disappointments. And somehow the connection was exactly the same as it had been in Boston. Me - a Barcelona girl who had always been a little bit theatrical, a little bit diva-like even at fifteen - suddenly wanting nothing more than to simply be seen. Not the persona. Not the exterior. Just me.

And I think he was the first person who ever did that. Who really saw Blanca. Which sounds like a simple concept but is actually surprisingly difficult to achieve. Just me, stripped of everything else.

Of course I’m aware of all the differences between us. How we were raised, how we have grown up, our families, our backgrounds, the cultural distance. But somehow - and I truly have no interest in trying to decode this mystery - none of it matters with him.

In my family we used to call him Garbancito. And honestly, what a garbancito he is. One of the most empathetic, warm, genuine souls I have ever met. Maybe he has gone through things, maybe he has done things - we all have - but it simply doesn’t change the way I see him. He is the kind of person you enjoy seeing and the kind of person who makes you feel safe being seen.

Our “dates” - am I even allowed to call them that? - always follow the same pattern. We talk for hours, and then there is inevitably a promenade. In Paris it always passes by Notre Dame. This time in Milano it was Il Duomo. And usually, usually, there is a cherry on top: a kiss. The kind of kiss that might just be a way of saying goodbye until the next time, whenever that next time might be.

But this time it didn’t happen.

The funny thing is that before seeing him I wasn’t expecting it at all. Then suddenly I was. And it still didn’t happen. I think I know why, but in order to understand that you would probably need to meet him.

Every time I see him I wake up the next morning with the biggest smile on my face. I truly do. And I hope - I genuinely hope - that the same happens to him. Because he is the only person in my life who ever makes me ask myself that dangerous question: what if?

What if I had said yes to Paris instead of Milano.
What if one day I do get the opportunity to move there, which I have secretly wanted for years.
What if we had kept in touch more regularly.
What if I texted him right now just to tell him that I would love to see him again before he leaves.

What if.

The funny thing is that I have never been a “what if” kind of girl. Ever. I have always believed that the regret of not doing something is infinitely worse than the regret of trying and failing. So I usually just go for things.

But still.

What if.

It had been almost three years since the last time I saw him because during my last visits to Paris - which were many - I never texted him. Yet every single time I land in that city I think about him. Not in a dramatic way. Just in a soft, affectionate way. Wondering what he is up to, how life is treating him, what new stories he might have.

And then yesterday I saw him again. The first glance and my jaw genuinely dropped. He still looks the same - but in a hotter version somehow. And what makes him even more attractive is his vulnerability. The way he looks at you with those very blue, very attentive eyes. If something, I've always been a sucker for blue eyes, a great smile and french guys. And this Parisian has this special gaze that feels soft and intense at the same time.

I’m lost.

I don’t know. He is just… a someone. A very big someone for me. The kind of someone that feels like a hilo rojo - that invisible thread that keeps two people connected no matter the distance or the time. I don’t know if this story will end at some point. Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t. But the idea of having such a pure and enjoyable connection with someone is already rewarding enough.

He is rewarding.

And just in case you are reading this - which I honestly don’t know if you ever will - you should know something. I was expecting a kiss when you got into that cab. I walked back home with the biggest smile on my face. You probably noticed already because I couldn’t stop smiling the whole time we were together.

Also, the way you put out your cigarettes on your shoe and then throw the cigarette butts in the bin is strangely attractive.

See you.
Who knows when.
Maybe in Milano. Maybe in Paris. Maybe somewhere else.

Bisous - no pun intended,

Blanca