Chapter 1

Dropping her oversize luggage onto the tile floor with an exhausted sigh, Alessandra threw her jet lagged body down onto the tiny twin bed gratefully and surveyed her new apartment. It was a cramped studio with a low ceiling and a barely-there kitchen, but what it lacked in size it certainly made up for in charm.

A vase of blazing red tulips sat on the kitchen table, and the floor tiles were emblazoned with a vibrant blue and white motif. Her bed was plush and comfy, and the nightstand boasted a beautiful antique lamp and a handwritten welcome note from her new landlord. Best of all, large windows let in ample natural light and provided a view out onto one of the most gorgeous streets Alessandra had ever laid eyes on.

Raising herself up onto her forearms and gazing out the window, she felt a sense of calm descend over her. For the first time she felt sure of it: Taormina had been a good idea.

After booking her plane ticket, Alessandra had been plagued for months with the nagging worry that she’d made a huge mistake. After all, she was leaving everything she knew behind—her life in Boston, her friends, her family…even her goldfish, which she’d gifted to her best friend, Liza, before leaving. It was a daunting thing to move across the Atlantic to Italy, made all the more intimidating by the fact that she spoke about two words of Italian.

Yet she’d known, deep down, that it was time for a change. Life in Boston had felt stagnant for years, and the breakup with her ex, Ben, had been the final straw. She felt like her internal spark had gone out, and the optimism that she could usually muster for brunch with friends, work events, and curling up at home with a good book had disappeared.

Sometime in November, a month after the breakup, she’d arrived at Sunday brunch in sweats and a baggy band tee, only to be greeted by a concerned look from Liza. “You okay?” her best friend had asked, sliding her mimosa across the booth and offering Alessandra a sip.

“What do you mean?” Alessandra had replied, surprised.

“I don’t know…I’ve just been worried about you lately. I guess you look a little—” Liza paused, searching for the right word. “Gaunt? Depressed, maybe? I mean, you’ve got bags under your eyes and it looks like you’ve lost some weight. I know that what happened with Ben was really fucked up, and I just want to make sure you’re alright…”

Alessandra took a giant gulp of her friend’s drink and then looked down, silent. After a moment she looked up again, searching for the right words. “Yeah, I think you’re right. It’s not like I’m devastated over Ben; I’d known for a while that he wasn’t my person. But when he cheated on me something clicked in my brain, and I realized I’ve been wasting my time. In my relationship, but maybe also in other aspects of my life. I just don’t really feel excited about anything anymore, you know?”

“Which is a major red flag,” Liza pointed out, “because you used to be the queen of excitement. When I first met you, you were so lit up about everything; it was one of the things I loved most about you.”

Alessandra buried her face in her hands. “I know,” she affirmed, sadly. “So what do I do?”

Liza looked at her friend thoughtfully. “First, you order a drink. Then I think we need to find something that excites you. Something that makes you feel alive again.” Liza paused to brush her blonde bangs out of her eyes and flag down the waiter, then continued, “When’s the last time you really felt alive?”

“I guess it was on that trip that Ben and I took to Mexico together last winter.” Hastily, she added, “Not because I was there with Ben—actually, we fought the entire time. But experiencing a new culture was so incredible; I loved hearing Spanish all around me, the architecture, and oh my God, the food was insane.” As she thought about it, a smile broke out on her face.

“I hate to say this Al, because I’ll miss the shit out of you, but that’s the first genuine smile I’ve seen in months. I think you need to plan a trip.”


Alessandra had turned the idea over in her mind for days. Her job as a video editor allowed her the freedom to work remotely, but she’d never really taken advantage of the perk before. Ben had always been too tied to his job as a personal trainer at the gym to travel often, and for some reason it had never occurred to her to travel alone. Now she wondered if a long vacation was the answer to her problems.

The only question on her mind was whether a trip was enough to shake her out of her funk. Sure, she could jet over to Mexico for a week or two, eat some incredible churros, and pretend that her life was different. But at the end of the day, wouldn’t she just be returning to the status quo in Boston, more disillusioned than ever?

The more Alessandra thought about it, the more she was convinced that a trip wasn’t the answer. Until a week later, when she was lounging on her couch and casually scrolling Instagram. That’s when it popped up on her explore page—a photo of the most exquisite table she’d ever seen.

First her eye was drawn to the pizza in the center of the table. It had a thin, golden crust, ruby red sauce, rounds of milky mozzarella, and a perfect sprig of basil adorning the top. Then her eyes widened greedily as she noticed the pasta beside it: long strands of spaghetti laced delicately around filets of eggplant, smothered in tomato sauce and covered in a thick layer of Parmesan cheese. Two bright orange glasses of Aperol Spritz finished off the spread.

The most arresting thing about the table, besides the fact that she wanted to devour every bite of the food on it, was its location. It sat in a large town square in front of an ornate railing that looked out upon a turquoise sea. Startlingly, a snow covered volcano sat on the horizon, fluffy white clouds surrounding its impressive peak.

Immediately, Alessandra stopped scrolling and stared. The view took her breath away and the food filled her stomach with a buzzy sense of excitement. Against her will, she felt a smile tugging at her lips as she imagined sitting at that table with a pair of sunglasses on, eating a pizza slice and basking in the sunshine while the sea sparkled before her. Her eyes drifted towards the top of the photo until she found what she was looking for. The location tag read, “Taormina, Italy.”

She looked up the small town in Sicily and immediately knew that a week, two weeks, even a month, would never be enough time in that paradise. No—if she was going to do this, she had to do it right.

Things had progressed quickly after that. She’d found a subletter for her apartment, handed over her goldfish to Liza for safekeeping, and broken the news to her friends and family that she was moving to Sicily for a year.

Now here she was, staring out at a cobblestone street lined with pink stone houses, each one overlaid with vines of vibrant fuchsia flowers. Tourists and villagers alike walked along the streets chattering happily in Italian, and the powdered-sugar scent of cannoli lingered in the air.

Motivated by the smell of food, Alessandra heaved her tired body off the bed and walked to the bathroom. Grabbing a hairbrush, she combed it quickly through her long, wavy brown hair, then twirled to face the floor length mirror secured to the back of the bathroom door.

Flashing back to Liza’s comments at brunch weeks before, she noted the purplish bags under her eyes and the thin frame that greeted her in the mirror. She’d always been skinny, never weighing more than 120 pounds. But since her breakup with Ben, she’d dropped down to about 110. She could make out the outline of bones on her chest, and her breasts looked small and deflated.

She frowned, then heard a shout of laughter echoing from outside her window and shook her head. Determined to think positively, she noted the long, shiny locks that framed her delicate face, her full lips, and her gleaming green eyes. Her butt had retained its round shape despite her weight loss, and her legs were tanned and toned. She knew that men found her attractive, and she mentally chided herself for being a downer.

This was the first day of her new life, and it was time to get a cannoli.