I came back to Genoa carrying Rome like a stone in my stomach. The drive felt twice as long as the map claimed—every kilometer a reminder that I had to be the Responsible Daughter again and not the girl who makes messy choices and then hyperventilates about them.
Papa waited at the entrance like a lighthouse with arms. He hugged me so tight my ribs filed a complaint.
“Isabella! You’re home. Tell me everything. The campus? The lectures? Ready for the exams?”
“Good, Papa. Informative,” I said, smiling like a brochure.
“And the professors? Helpful?”
Stomach twist. “Very.”
I performed—nod here, anecdote there, laughter track included. “Dorm was comfortable. Luisa was an excellent company. Yes, prepared.” Also yes: lying through my teeth. No, nothing bad happened. No, I was perfectly safe. Ten out of ten, would gaslight myself again.
“Come, breakfast,” he said, and I followed, giving answers that meant nothing and hiding all the ones that did.
Morning smelled like damp soil and routine. I found Matteo in the vineyard, back to me, hands busy, shoulders tighter than I remembered. My footsteps on the path made him straighten—careful, like I was a branch he wasn’t sure he should touch.
“Ciao,” I tried, soft.
“Ciao, Bella. You’re back.”
“Sì. Yesterday.”
He kept his hands moving, checking spur positions, snapping off a useless shoot. Silence stretched thin.
“Matteo, can we talk?”
“I’m listening.”
I moved closer, wishing he’d just turn and be my Matteo. “Rome didn’t go as planned.”
“Oh?” Flat.
“The person I told you about… he wasn’t what I hoped.” Words tiptoed around a crater.
He turned finally. Jaw tight, eyes dark and unreadable. “What happened?”
“He disappointed me. I thought he saw me as—” I stopped before I fell in. “I was wrong.”
Say something. Ask me. Fight for me.
He looked at me for a long heartbeat, then turned back to the cane in his hand. “Then let it be not-what-you-hoped. I can still be your friend.”
Friend.
The word clanged shut like a gate.
“Matteo—”
“I have work,” he said softly, which somehow hurt more. He slid the shears in, clean and merciful—two buds, good airflow, no crowding—and I was the extra growth he didn’t have room for. I stood there like a decorative stake and then walked back up to the house, spine pretending to be brave.
That evening I needed air, so I opened my window. The garden glowed that green-gold that makes you think maybe you could be forgiven for everything. Matteo was in the side lawn, training like the vines were watching.
He jumped rope—fast, light—hair falling into his eyes, breath steady. The sound of rope on stone—thwip, thwip—rhymed with my pulse. He shook out his arms, glanced toward the house, and I ducked like a spy in a bad movie, then peeked anyway because I am brave in extremely specific, unhelpful ways.
I had the humiliating thought that kiss marks would look good on that throat and immediately wanted to fling myself into the nearest compost heap.
I shut the window and sat on the floor with my back to the bed. The room smelled like salt and old paper. I reached for the notebook I’d hidden under sweaters—the one with the first letters pressed flat inside like dangerous flowers. I told myself I was going to tear them up. I unfolded the top sheet instead.
Isabella, teaching you is a pleasure for me. Your comprehension is unusually clear, and your questions refine mine. I hope you feel a similar intellectual accord. —L.F.
It looked harmless in this quieter light. Formal. Careful. But I remembered how my pulse had hiccupped at accord, like he’d touched a hidden key inside my ribs. The second note waited beneath:
What do you want that your father cannot imagine for you?
That sentence still opened secret doors. It made my chest ache with wanting—a bigger life, a bigger love, the sort that rearranges the furniture of your soul. Matteo was… good. Sun-warm, rooted, patient. But he was my size, my history. The professor was a cliff with a view. He knew things. He had edges. He made me feel less like a girl and more like a possibility.
I hated that I liked the feeling. I liked it anyway.
I stacked the pages, then didn’t. I pressed one to my knee, imagining his voice—precise, low—saying my name the way he did when I got an answer right.
Maybe I had misread the rest. Maybe I had panicked too soon. Maybe big love always looked a little dangerous up close. The thought was intoxicating and stupid at the same time. I put the small notes by Ferraro back, then took them out again, then finally slid them under the notebook as if the wood could cool them.
I slept badly, then not at all, then too hard. Matteo stood beneath the fig tree, he had Ferraro’s face. That man stepped from the shadow of the vines. He touched the back of my neck—careful—and my knees did the thing. His mouth came close, breath sweet with mint and work; his fingers slid to my waist; the world narrowed to skin and yes.
“Bella,” he whispered, like a prayer with teeth. I reached, greedy and honest—and he stepped back.
I woke with my hand fisted in the sheet and tears on my cheeks, which is extremely glamorous, in case you were wondering.
In the morning Papa called me into his study with eyes that sparkled like he’d solved me.
“Isabella, siediti. I saw you were… unsettled. I arranged something wonderful.” He slid a letter across the desk. “A month-long practice at a prestigious clinic in Tuscany. Quiet, reputable, safe. Exactly what you need before real studies.”
My hands shook. Neutral letterhead. Professional paragraphs. No names I recognized.
“What friend?” I asked.
“A respected team. The director’s name isn’t important; the structure is. On-site housing, supervision, real patients.” He squeezed my hand. “Your mother would be proud. Education. Independence.”
How do you say no without giving away the secret worm inside the apple?
“When do I leave?” I asked, hollow.
“Next Thursday. I’ll drive you myself.”
Later, in my room, I opened my laptop. An email waited like a trap that smiles.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Welcome to Tuscany Clinical Program
We look forward to welcoming you… Arrival Thursday, June 15. Housing provided…
Scroll, scroll. Schedule. Policies. Boring, safe, careful. And then, small at the bottom, easy to miss:
Program Director: L. F.
The room tilted. My hands went earthquake. There are other people with those initials, I told myself. Luigi Ferretti. Lucia Fabbri. Lorenzo—anybody. But my stomach already knew. The timing. The “friend.”