I was going to faint. I was sure of it. I had to tell him before it happened. I fished in my Italian language archive as he helped me cross the cobblestone piazza, suddenly doubting my ability to speak the language under these circumstances. The typical Saturday night crowd flooded the square; drinking, yelling, partying. Leaning drunkenly, unsteadily, on their companions. I was leaning sober and unsteadily on mine, a blue dish towel draped over my left hand, with splotches of metallic red on the bottom of my pink mini-dress. I started to feel lightheaded, as if I were dreaming. I was going to faint. What was the word?
Svenire.
“Davide, sto per svenire,” I said, breathing shallowly, panic encircling each foreign word. I am about to faint.
“We’re almost there,” he replied curtly in Italian. “It’s just around the corner.”
We managed to make it inside as my vision started to get spotty, and I heard him explaining what had happened to the medic on duty. His words were muffled, as if he were holding a plastic cup over his mouth. “She was trying to open a bottle of wine, but the glass broke in her hand,” the voice in the cup said. “She’s really afraid of blood.”
Yes I am, I thought, feeling dizzy. Then I walked into a door.
When I came to moments later, I was in a chair with Davide to my right and a medic to my left. Once the ratty dish towel was exchanged for a proper bandage, I took inventory of the facts with a weary acceptance.
There was a hole in my hand between my thumb and index finger. I was going to have to get my first set of stitches. I was supposed to go dancing to celebrate my last night in Florence before the big move. Instead I was going to the hospital.
I exhaled and looked at my boyfriend.
Boyfriend. The word still frightened me. Even when I said it in English it felt foreign; an imposter that had somehow snuck into my daily vocabulary.
He smiled cautiously, looking relieved to see me turn back into a recognizable version of myself. I had told him I was afraid of blood. Now he could confidently confirm. Perhaps he’d even endorse me for my theatrical fainting skills should I decide to put them on LinkedIn.
We had been seeing each other for three months and had just decided to try long distance, if a two-hour train ride could qualify as such. We were in the stage where things were either about to crumble or intensify. I figured I would discover which way the pendulum was going to swing once I left the city, but surely this night’s events would serve as a catalyst.
I had been dreading the move for weeks. Six months earlier, I took the biggest leap of my life, moving to Florence on a study visa. My intent was to learn enough Italian to find a job, and I had
done it. The only problem was that it was in Milan, and I was crazy about Florence. Even after four months of waiting for work visa documents, I wasn’t ready to part with the city. I wondered, idly, if a small part of me wanted this to happen; if I wanted to hurt myself, not badly, but enough to stay in the city I loved for a few more days.
To make the move harder, I had just begun a new relationship. As a proud traveler with little interest in staying in one place for very long, I was used to casually dating and then gracefully cutting ties before takeoff. But I couldn’t cut this tie. I had met a good one. And just like anyone who values fierce independence and hates vulnerability, that terrified me.
I wondered what he was thinking as he slid into the front seat of the ambulance, and they strapped me onto the stretcher. “I can just sit in the chair,” I had mumbled feebly, but the medic said it was policy. We drove to the hospital in silence, my hand injury not meriting the urgency of a siren, and I felt sillier than ever. Surely Davide was in the front seat, thinking of the drinking he wouldn’t be doing tonight and calculating how many days he’d have to wait before he could dump me without seeming too obvious.
When we got to the hospital, the paramedic at the front desk told me that I had to wait alone and that it may be two hours. Davide ran back to my apartment to grab all the important things we’d left behind while I sulked over to the wounded waiting area, plunking myself down across from a rather unimpressed-looking guard with an ice pack on a swollen foot. We eyed each other’s injuries competitively.
Two minutes later the paramedic called me behind the desk and started to look at my hand. “Can I just say that I am really afraid of blood,” I blurted in clumsy Italian, breathing quickly.
His eyes flickered from my hand to my face. He seemed amused. I followed him to a back room, wondering what had happened to those two hours he had mentioned. He motioned for me to sit and then pulled out the biggest needle I’d ever seen.
“This will burn a little,” he said. It burned a little.
He started to ask me questions as he put in the stitches, but I knew his tactic. Distract the scared girl. Make her talk about herself. I played along anyway and informed him that I was moving to Milan.
“When?”
-Tomorrow. If I still can.
“Of course you still can.”
-Oh.
I told him that I’d be writing for a men’s clothing brand, the whole time keeping my eyes squeezed shut with my head decisively turned in the other direction. After a few minutes, my queasiness returned, and his words drifted past me.
“Why did you stop answering?”
-Because I’m imagining what you’re doing.
“Ah yes. What are you imagining?”
-That you’re sewing me up like a pillow.
He laughed. “And your boyfriend. Does he live in Florence or Milan?”
“Florence,” I answered flatly.
Finally, he finished his handiwork and convinced me to open my eyes. I would have to clean my hand every night, and after a week, I was to go get the stitches out. “Oh, and sometimes it helps if you cry a little,” he added. “They’ll help you faster.”
The next day, Davide cleaned the stitches for me, unbothered, and lugged my oversized suitcase out to the curb. I said goodbye to my apartment, taking advantage of his brief absence to wipe at my eyes.
He walked me to the train, asking an employee if he could go in without a ticket to help with my luggage. “Do you want to accompany her onto the train or do you want to accompany her to Milan?” the guard asked, but he let him pass nonetheless.
We said our goodbyes quickly, having endured enough drama in the last 12 hours. Then it was just me, my suitcases, and the hole in my hand.
It wasn’t exactly a smooth transition. Just as a particularly bad cold makes you long for the days when you could breathe out of your nose, I realized just how many things really required two hands. Unpacking. Carrying groceries. Chopping tomatoes. Washing my hair. Typing emails. Opening cans.
Bandaging hands.
Nonetheless, after a few flying tomatoes, I got kind of good at chopping them with one hand. My right hand’s typing speed increased. I developed a creative method for pouring shampoo directly onto my head and then distributing it with the same hand.
To my surprise, the following happened. The hole in my hand completely healed after a month. I missed Florence but started to enjoy the aspects of metropolitan life that Milan has to offer. My relationship evolved, hinged on more phone calls during the week and in-person dates on the weekend. Everything changed but not in a bad way.
I adjusted.
I thought that after moving my whole life to Italy, nothing would scare me anymore. And then I met Davide. And then I got a job in Milan. And then I split my hand open.
When we’re forced outside of our comfort zones, whether with an unexpected emergency room visit, an intentional overseas move, or the frightening state of vulnerability that comes with a new relationship, there’s a moment of panic when we say, “What have I gotten myself into? How long will this last? Will things work out the way I want them to?”
Maybe they will. Maybe they won’t. Regardless of the outcome, we figure it out. We adapt. We heal. We start to feel normal walking the big city streets. Master one-armed grocery shopping. Sink into the new relationship.
Sometimes it helps if you cry a little.
