Week two of the internship, and I’d split in two: the girl who smiles on rounds, and the girl who counts minutes to Ferraro’s next request.
This morning, I woke at six and checked my phone. Six unread from Luisa: Bella, you’re scaring me. Please tell me you’re okay. I typed: Something’s wrong. I need help. Deleted. Typed: Can you come get me? Deleted. Typed: I’m fine, just busy. Couldn’t send.
By 7:30 I was his shadow with a clipboard, matching his stride through corridors that seem built to like him.
“Buongiorno, Dottore,” everywhere—handshakes, small nods, faces brightening.
He answered in clean instruments: “modality,” “outcomes,” “consenso informato.”
People leaned toward him without meaning to. I felt my own spine copy them.
At nine he assigned me Signora Giulietta—sweet, anxious. We did breathing and grounding. Her shoulders lowered.
“You have a gift,” she said. “You make people feel safe.”
The word “safe” cut as it landed.
Lunch. Staff room bright as a dental lamp.
“You’re so thin, Isabella. Tutto bene?”
“Just pre-uni nerves. I can’t eat when I’m anxious.”
Fluent lie. I hated the fluency. In the mirror: hollow eyes, sharp collarbones. A pencil sketch pretending to be me. Back in my room, I reopened Luisa’s message: Something’s wrong. I need help. Hover. Delete. One more try: Can you come get me? Delete. Finally: I’m fine, just busy.
My phone buzzed with Ferraro’s message: My office. 8 p.m. Don’t be late.
Three more days. I can do three days. (Right?)
By eight the villa was library-quiet. I knocked and entered. Classical music hummed, he was a still life—wine, low light, immaculate posture.
“Lock the door.”
I did.
“Stand there.”
Center of the room, under the lamp. He watched—sipped and watched.
“Take off your clothes.”
“Please, I’m so tired—”
“Now.”
I folded each piece like neatness might count as dignity.
“Arms at your sides.”
I lowered them. Silence grew bones.
“Dance.”
The word hit like a bell. I breathed in the music and let my hips find a slow sway. Bare feet, cool floor. Toes testing for rhythm. I lifted my chin and drew a small arc with my wrist. Turned—one, two. Hair slid over my shoulder; I let it fall like a curtain, then gathered it again.
I softened my knees, rolled weight heel to ball, circled my waist like a quiet tide. Counted in my head—uno, due, tre—so my legs wouldn’t shake. Then, shaped air with my hands, as if I could redraw myself into someone brave. Spine long, throat offered.
My heartbeat became percussion and my shadow obeyed. It wasn’t pretty but it was true. Minutes stretched into a test I hadn’t studied for. I kept moving—small, contained, deliberate—because stopping felt like disappearing.
He said nothing. Then he stood and circled me.
Click.
His phone.
Click. Click. Click.
Angles, angles, angles. Data collection, and I was the chart.
“Get dressed.”
Every button is a mountain.
“Your father called,” he said. “He asked about you. I told him you exceed expectations. So compliant.”
He let the word ring.
“He’s grateful I keep an eye on his precious daughter as he can’t. He couldn’t even keep an eye on your mother, and he lost her. I lost her.”
My stomach lurched; Ferraro held up the photos. “These show real acceptance.”
He slid the phone away, calm as a surgeon. “Three more days, then you go home. But this doesn’t end. You understand?”
I nodded. My voice was somewhere under the floor.
“Good. You can go.”
The corridor felt colder back to my room. I counted tiles because numbers don’t lie to you. I slid down the door to the floor and opened my phone.
Papa;s message: So proud of you, tesoro. Only a few days and you’ll be home. Luisa: Haven’t heard from you in weeks! Are you okay?
I looked at my draft—I’m fine, just busy—and pressed send. Watched the lie sprout wings.
Then I deleted every version where I’d asked for help. Sweep, sweep, under a rug that already bulges. I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling so my thoughts had somewhere to go. Time crawled like it had nails.
My body still remembered the slap—the hot lightning—and the apologies that followed like rain trying to put out its own fire.
“Everyone makes mistakes,” Papa always says. “Forgiveness matters.”
I tried it on. The sleeves swallowed my hands.
At midnight I made a plan that wasn’t a plan: three more days, then home. Pretend to forget the photos while I learn not to be haunted. Be normal enough that Papa doesn’t crack open the past and find my new sins nesting inside.
I pictured the vineyard. The mercy of dirt and light. Matteo at dusk, jump rope on the stones—thwip, thwip—summer’s metronome.
I imagined telling Luisa everything, her color-coded lists: what happened; what to do; how to remember I’m not ruined. I thought of Mama’s old words I remember when I need a spine.
“Proud of you,” “Study,” “Eat,” “Don’t forget joy.”
I mouthed them like a prayer. The villa creaked—wind touched the shutters. Somewhere a night nurse laughed—bright, human—and I clung to that sound like a railing I could trust for one step.
Dawn came rude and gold. I hadn’t slept, but my body stood because bodies do when the world insists. I washed my face and found my eyes still belong to my mother and my mouth still belongs to a stranger. I packed a small bag with nothing important just to practice leaving, then unpacked it. Brave in useless ways—ciao, that’s me.
I straightened the bed, smoothed the sheet until it looked like someone else’s life. Opened the window to let in ordinary air that doesn’t know my name.
“Three more days,” I told the room. “Then home.”
I have survived a month. Surely I can survive three days. Except I know—quietly, in the place where truth lives—that even when I leave, I won’t really leave.
The photos will keep pace and the threats will ride shotgun. And this room—this music, this silence, that light—will beat inside me like a second heart that refuses to stop.
I am nineteen, Italian, stubborn, full of jokes I don’t say out loud, trying to be wise while still very young. I keep breathing.