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Luca knows before Giulia’s mother has hung up the phone that something is very wrong. Alberto is the first thought in his head, and it’s the one that does not let go.
He stands up so fast that he knocks back the chair he’d been sitting in as Giulia’s mother gasps. It clatters against the wooden floor and he should probably pick it up but his feet are rooted to the ground and his hands cannot let go of the edge of the table. Giulia says something, but she sounds like she’s in a faraway tunnel. Her touch on his arm is the only thing that keeps Luca from bolting out the door.
Giulia’s mother says little. “How long ago?” she asks into the reciever, followed by a “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
Luca’s stomach has a lead weight as Giulia’s mother turns brown eyes onto her daughter, and then to Luca.
“It’s Alberto,” she confirms. “He’s missing.”
--
The train ride is long. The Italian countryside passes by in a rush of greens and blues and grays. Luca looks out the window and thinks that it would be more beautiful if he was on a Vespa, with Alberto’s chest vibrating beneath his arms as he shouts with eurphoria.
Missing.
Alberto has been missing for 13 hours and Luca feels like there’s a part of him that’s missing too.
--
His own mother and father, in their human forms, are there at the Marcovaldos’ place when Luca opens the door. Giulia runs straight into her father’s embrace, pressing her tear-stained face to his broad shoulders. His rumbling voice offers words of reassurance that Luca doesn’t hear.
Luca stands in the doorway and feels lost.
His mother takes a step towards him, says his name. Luca cannot bring himself to move.
“Where is Alberto?”
--
The police had already come, Giulia’s father explains as the adults drink coffee and Giulia drinks water and Luca tries not to throw up. What if he’s dead? Luca thinks and then immediately: Silenzio, Bruno.
There’s a crease between Signor Marcovaldo’s thick brows and a hunch to his shoulders. He is gripping his mug of coffee so tightly Luca wonders briefly it if might break apart in his hand.
“We’ll find him,” Luca’s father says. Luca opens his mouth to respond when he realizes that his father is looking at Signor Marcovaldo. That the words of reassurance were not meant for his son, but for the other father in the room.
Giulia’s dad sets his cup on the table in front of him and walks out of the room without responding. Luca sees the way he about to slam the door before he stops it, and closes it softly.
--
His parents offer to take him home. Luca uses as few words as possible to explain that he would rather stay here. In case there’s news. Luca expects a fight that is parents don’t give him.
His mother hugs him extra long before they leave. Luca returns it, if only because he knows it will help his mom feel better.
They promise to come back in the morning. Luca nods. He bites his tongue from asking them to stay, too. What if they disappear like Alberto?
--
Giulia is quiet that night. Luca sleeps out on the hideout and tries not to feel like the weight of Alberto’s absence will send him tumbling through the floor and crashing to the ground. Giulia leaves the window open and for that, Luca is grateful.
“Luca?”
“Hm?”
The silence that follows is suffocating.
“Do you think Alberto… ran away?”
“No.”
“I’m scared for him.”
Luca knows that he should offer some words of reassurance. That’s what friends do. But he cannot speak past the hardening lump in his throat and he stares at the lights above him that Alberto once insisted were anchovies and can feel his chest pulse with an ache he cannot name.
Alberto was always the one to quiet the fear inside of him. Silenzio, Bruno, Luca thinks fiercely, and swallows when he realizes that voice sounds an awful lot like Alberto.
--
Luca smooths his hand over the poster to adhere it to the wall. His hand does not linger no matter how much he wants it to. Neither does his gaze. If he does either for too long, he will begin to cry.
“C’mon,” Luca tells Giulia when he can feel her worried stare boring into the side of his face. “We have more posters to hang up.”
“Hey,” she says, putting her hand on his shoulder.
He shrugs out from under her grip. “I’m fine.”
He knows that he is a terrible liar. He knows that Giulia can read him better than anyone. He waits for Giulia to call him out on it, unsure of what he will say in response.
She says nothing. She can, after all, read him better than anyone. So she hands him the next poster, and they get back to work.
--
I’m gonna fix this. That was his promise to Alberto a year ago. He wants that to be his promise now. He wants to say it—wants to scream it—wants it to be true.
Luca doesn’t know if he can. He thinks of the clock at the bottom of the ocean and wonders if it is still counting the seconds. Luca is.
He makes it to noon before he cries.
--
Signor Marcovaldo starts to make Trenette al Pesto and stops halfway through. Luca watches from the dining room table as his parents and Giulia’s mother have a hushed conversation in the next room over. Signor Marcovaldo’s hand wavers as he reaches for the garlic cloves, then drops to his side.
“Perhaps we should… order something instead,” he says.
“Papa—”
He leaves. Giulia sighs. When she starts chopping the garlic, Luca busies himself by draining the pasta. He pretends he doesn’t see Giulia wipe her eyes on the sleeve of her striped shirt, and he decides to return her watery smile.
--
“Maybe he ran away,” the police say the next day. Early afternoon sun filters through the open windows, the salty ocean air tickling Luca’s nose.
“He didn’t,” Luca interrupts. He has spent most of his life not knowing things, but he knows this. Alberto didn’t run away.
“Sweetheart,” his mom begins, and Luca’s stomach rolls. He steps back when she reaches for him.
“He didn’t.”
“I know he’s your friend, kid,” one of the officers tells him, “but we found plans and maps at that island you said he used to spend his free time at.”
“That’s different,” Luca says, his throat tightening. “That was before. He wouldn’t run away! The life he has here is important to him. I know it.”
“Luca—”
“No! I know Alberto! He didn’t just run away.” Luca can feel his heartbeat pounding in against his ribs, like it wants to break free of his confines of his chest. As desperate to reach Alberto as the rest of him is. Luca’s eyes flit over the room to settle squarely on Signor Marcovaldo, who stands in the corner and stares at the floor.
“He wouldn’t abandon the people he loves,” Luca insists.
Signor Marcovaldo’s gaze rises and steadfastly meet’s Luca’s own. “And we won’t abandon him.”
--
“You’re going to collapse if you keep going like this,” Giulia tells him quietly the afternoon of the following day, in the middle of the town square. Luca can feel the rain against his scales and dripping off his fins.
“I’m fine.”
“Luca, you’re not yourself—”
“What do you want from me, Guilia?” Luca snaps. “I’m trying to find Alberto, and I don’t know where to look, and I don’t know who took him or why and I can’t sleep at night because I don’t know that he’s safe and I never got to tell him—”
Luca’s voice fails him when Guilia grabs him and pulls him into a hug. She doesn’t let go for a long time. And when she feels Luca’s shoulders jerk with an aborted sob, she just squeezes tighter.
--
Luca sleeps for a few hours the third night. He wakes up when the door opens and Signor Marcovaldo’s broad frame is silhouetted against the light form inside the house. He is wearing his hat and has a lamp in his hand. Luca slides down the ladder and calls out to him.
“Luca. You should be asleep.”
“Are you going to look for Alberto?”
There’s a beat, and Luca wonders if he’s going to lie to him. “Yes.”
“I want to come with you.”
“It is late—”
“Please, Signor.”
Luca looks up at him. He can sense, more than see, the way Signor Marcovaldo looks at him. Close and studying, as if trying to parcel something out. Whatever it is, he seems to find it, as he looks in the direction of the town, and then back.
“Alberto cares very much for you, Luca.”
Luca’s heart stutters a little. His lungs squeeze. “And I for him, sir.”
A heavy hand lands in his hair and ruffles it. “I know. Come. Walk with me.”
--
Luca had learned much in his year at school. He learned about stars, and spelling, and addition.
He did not learn how to deal with this.
He did not learn how to count the hours when the days bleed into sleepless nights and time itself starts to lose meaning. He did not learn how to stop counting the minutes, as if counting to sixty a million times will stave off the way his vision blurs on the edges if he stands in one place for too long.
Luca throws a tarp over the rusting Vespa and wishes that the hole in his heart could be covered as easily.
--
When Luca becomes too exhausted, he sleeps. When he sleeps, he dreams of Alberto.
The dreams are a patchwork quilt in memories. Alberto’s sun-warmed shoulder brushing against Luca’s, the teasing quirk of his eyebrow, the stretch of his spine when he planned to put himself firmly in the way of danger. Then the echo of take me, gravity as he disappears down the edge of a cliff to dive into the water below.
Luca follows, every time.
Alberto disappears.
Every.
Time.
--
Luca stares at the anchovies (stars, he knows, hot balls of gas lightyears away from here but Alberto is not here and Luca wants to hold on to the parts of Alberto that he can with both hands) when he hears the phone ring.
Signor Marcovaldo picks up on the first ring. Luca realizes he must have been waiting. He wonders how many nights he spent at the kitchen table, also unable to sleep. Luca glances at the still-open window to Giulia’s room, sees her light immediately click on, and wonders if maybe nobody in this house has slept since Alberto went missing.
Luca sits up when he hears Signor Marcovaldo knock on her door.
--
They have a lead. Signor Marcovaldo sits on the edge of Giulia’s bed. Looks at Luca through the window. Found some fabric that matched his shirt a few miles north.
Luca slides down the ladder to the ground so fast he feels his palms rubbed raw from the rope burn.
Luca tears the tarp off the Vespa and kicks it into gear. He hears his name being called from the house, the thundering of footsteps down the stairs after him.
“Wait!” Signor Marcovaldo calls to him, but all Luca has done for the past week is wait.
He feels a sudden weight on the back of the Vespa and sees Giulia yanking on a helmet.
“Go!” she shouts in his ear.
He turns the Vespa north and goes as fast as he can.
--
Luca races the moon. Portorosso gives way to a tree line, thick with the scent of dew and dirt. He thinks he can feel Giulia’s hands shaking around him, but he does not know if that is the thrum of the Vespa beneath them or if her anxiety is an echo of his own.
All he knows is that Alberto is north. So that’s where Luca wants to be.
--
“STOP!”
Luca sees it at the same time Giulia does and brings the Vespa to a lurching halt against the dirt trail they had been following. Giulia tightens her grip on Luca to keep them both from careening off the vehicle.
Luca blinks at the figure in the road, clearing the spray of dust from his eyes.
The moonlight filters weakly through the leaves of the canopy above them. Luca can barely see, but the headlight from the Vespa offers enough of a glow to make out the form that stands on the path. Just far enough away from the light to be a shadow in the darkness.
Luca tentatively climbs off the Vespa and takes a step forward. It has been over a year, but Luca has seen that same silhouette in his dreams every day for a week.
“Alberto?”
The answering voice is raspy and hoarse, but its familiarity thunders in Luca’s head. “L…Luca?”
And then Alberto collapses.
--
Luca does not reach him before he hits the ground but it’s a close thing. “Alberto!”
The bottom of Alberto’s tank top is torn, he cheeks gaunt. Parts of him are blue scales. The base of his skull has purple fins that fade up into his soft tower of curly hair. Almost like he had gone for a swim, and not fully dried off.
“He’s bleeding. And I think he has a fever,” Giulia says quietly, and only now does Luca realize that she is kneeling on the other side of him. Luca hears her voice as if he’s underwater. There’s something off about it, he knows, but he cannot place it.
“C’mon, Luca. We have to get him home.”
--
The trip home is quiet. They sandwich Alberto between them and Luca drives even faster on the way back.
Alberto’s weight and heat against him is a reminder of his presence—heavy and warm and here—but it’s not as comforting as Luca had thought it would be. He’s hurt. He’s sick.
I’m gonna fix this, Luca thinks, and guns it even faster as Portorosso comes into view again.
--
Luca does not know what he expects when he pulls up to the Marcovaldo’s home. He had not thought about it. Giulia is pulled aside by her mother, hushed and harsh words shading the concern from which they originate.
Signor Marcovaldo says nothing. He pulls Alberto up in his arm and disappears into the house. The churning in Luca’s gut spikes the moment Alberto disappears from his view, so Luca follows.
Giulia’s father takes Alberto back to his room, ducking into the small doorway. Luca lingers at the threshold and watches.
“Never do that again,” Signor Marcovaldo says as he lays Alberto down in his bed. It’s not until he turns to look at Luca in the doorway that Luca realizes he was speaking to him, not Alberto.
It is not a promise Luca can make. Not when he can see the rise and fall of Alberto’s chest for his own eyes.
“I had to, sir.” Luca takes a step into the room. “Is… Alberto going to be okay?”
Signor Marcovaldo turns to him, then sighs. He wordlessly places his hand on top of Luca’s head as he passes by.
“I need to make some phone calls,” he says in lieu of an answer. “Watch him for me, Luca.”
--
In the hours that follow, Luca does not leave the room.
Giulia’s mother comes in and lectures him about running off. Giulia tries to come to his defense—“we found Alberto, Mamma! Can’t you just leave him alone?”—but Luca shakes his head and apologizes, even though he is not sorry.
Signor Marcovaldo has a doctor attend to Alberto. Infected, the doctor says. But treatable. I believe he will make a full recovery.
Luca pretends he does not hear the relieved tremble to Signor Marcovaldo’s breath in response.
--
Luca is alone with Alberto and the sun is just barely peeking over the ocean’s horizon line when Alberto wakes up.
Alberto’s hand twitches in Luca’s. His green eyes crack open, and Luca leaps to his feet.
“Luca?” His name falling from Alberto’s mouth—dry and raspy as it sounds in this moment—is nearly enough to make Luca’s knees give out from under him.
“Sì, sì, sì.” Luca fumbles for the glass of water and straw on the table beside the bed. “Here.”
Alberto does not look away from Luca’s face as he drinks the water. Luca knows this because he, also, cannot bring himself to look away. As Luca pulls the cup away and turns to call for Signor Marcovaldo, Alberto’s grip on his hand tightens.
“Wait,” Alberto says.
In this moment, Luca does not believe himself capable of denying Alberto much of anything. So he stops, and turns back.
“You’re really here?”
Alberto has never sounded so small. When he touches Luca’s cheek, Luca goes very still.
“Sì,” Luca whispers.
He watches as Alberto’s green eyes flood with tears, and then hears the creak of the floorboards behind him. When Luca glances over his shoulder, he sees Giulia’s father in the doorway.
“Alberto,” Signor Marcovaldo says, and Alberto breaks.
--
Luca has to leave the room when the police come to get Alberto’s statement, but he hears whispers of it amongst the adults late at night when he is supposed to be asleep.
Word of sea monsters is spreading, Giulia’s mother says. You said Alberto said they were talking of research? I do wonder if it may have been more about experimentation—
Signor Marcovaldo’s rumble interrupts her. He escaped, Giana, and they raided the warehouse. They are not a threat any longer. That, and Alberto’s forgiveness, is all I care about.
Massimo, it’s not your fault—
It is, came the firm disagreement. Dio mi perdoni, but it is.
--
Two days later, Alberto sits in the hideout beside Luca and watches the sunlight filter through the leaves above them.
The quiet between them is filled with the sounds of Portorosso around them: children playing soccer in the town square, fishermen calling to one another on passing boats, seagulls squaking as they pass by overhead. Giulia was working on selling what remained of the family’s stock of fish, so her idle chatter is nowhere to be heard. Luca closes his eyes and listens mostly to Alberto drumming his fingers against his own stomach.
Alberto had been quiet in the days since waking up. Luca didn’t press him on it. The sound of the breath passing through his lungs and his footsteps when he walked was enough for Luca.
“Hey,” Alberto says suddenly.
“Yeah?”
“I never thanked you for coming to find me. That night, in the woods?”
Luca frowns and looks over at him. Alberto is still staring at the sky. “You don’t have to thank me. Of course I’d come for you.”
“Yeah, I just…” Alberto trails off, then sits up suddenly. Startled, Luca sits up too. Alberto turns to look at him, his green eyes intense. “I… I feel like I knew that. When I was… there. I can’t explain why, I just… I just knew.” He grabs Luca’s face in both of his hands.
Luca swears his heartbeat stops all together, then starts thundering in his chest. “Alberto—"
“I…” Alberto swallows. His eyes search Luca’s face like he might vanish if he so much as blinks. “I wasn’t sure I’d see you again. I fought my way out for you, but even then, I… I wasn’t… I couldn’t be sure, but I kept thinking—”
“Silenzio, Bruno?” Luca supplies, and turns to kiss Alberto’s palm against his face.
Alberto’s answering laugh is watery and thin as he presses his forehead against Luca’s. It is the most beautiful thing Luca has ever heard in his life.