Chapter Text
I walk along the shore of the island, waiting for Alberto. He said he would meet me here, but he’s late. I look at the watch on my left wrist. Oh God, he really is late. I bite my nails, knowing it’s a bad habit. I’ve only just got back from Genova, and I still haven’t seen Alberto. He was working as a lifeguard earlier today, maybe his shift just went late… Yeah, that seems right. He’ll still meet me here. I feel the rough sand between my toes as I take a deep breath. I wave crashes against my legs, and the tingling sensation of my scales being revealed calms me. I sit down and watch the sky turn orange and then red. By the time the sky is just beginning to look purple, Alberto still isn’t here. I sigh, grab the bag I had brought with me, and step into the deep blue ocean.
I greet my mom with a smile as I swim through the doorway of our house. She immediately gives me a huge bear hug that I am not ready for. Sometimes my mom can be a lot, but that’s something we have in common.
“Oh, Luca! You have no idea how much we missed you!” She says, her voice loud and firm as she prattles on about what they did over the school year. “But that’s just us! How was school?” At first, I don’t answer, stuck in thoughts about Alberto and how he stood me up. “Luca?” My mom snaps me back to reality.
“School was great!” I say, trying to keep my voice as cheerful as possible, "Giulia and I learned so much, but I’m really tired. It was a long train ride, y’know?” Mom rolls her eyes.
“Yes, I know, get to sleep, we have dinner with the Marcovaldos tomorrow, you and Giulia will have to tell us everything,” She tells me. I can’t help but feel upset when I remember that Alberto is basically Massimo’s son. I’ll have to tell him about how happy I was at school without mentioning how much I missed him. And, God, did I miss him.
Grandma is already sleeping when I come into our shared alcove. The kelp of my bed feels smooth against my skin, and I close my eyes until the next morning.
***
When I wake up, something’s not right. I’m still in my bed, but Grandma isn’t. And it’s light outside. I see rays of sun streaming down from the surface, only slightly distorted by the water. I sit up on my bed, looking around at the various plants and greenery in my underwater cave. I can hear the voices of my parents in the eating area. They’re talking about something, but I can't make it out. I slept in, didn’t I? That’s not something I usually do, but I must have been more tired than I thought. I swim my way to where my parents are, and I hear their conversation on the way.
“Are we sure we should keep letting him go there? It’s so far away and we barely got to see him over the holidays,” My mom says. They're talking about me, I know they are. I slow down, hoping to hear more of this conversation.
“It’s what he wants to do, Daniela; we can’t stop him from doing what he loves,” My dad explains.
“I know, Renzo… I’m – I just don’t like not knowing if he’s okay or not.” I hear her shuffle around. The words make me realize something I hadn’t before; maybe I was selfish to want to go to school. My mom made me promise that I would sleep in my room over the summer, and I never realized that she might need me here more than I needed to go to school.
I’m shocked back to reality when Grandma comes up behind me, “Luca,” She says, her voice gravelly but strong. She pulls me into a hug, “How was school?”
“It was okay,” I say, pulling back so I can see her face, “I missed you and the others, though.”
“I want to hear all about it, but first,” she says, pulling me back into our shared room, “Alberto dropped something off for you this morning.”
I pause, my heart racing. Grandma shuffles around her dresser drawer searching for whatever Alberto gave me, while she mumbles to herself about losing her memory. My mind searches for any sign of what he might have given me. A gift? No, he’s not the type to give gifts. Food? Why would he give me food?
“Ah, here it is!” Grandma says, " I shift my focus to her eagerly, “A letter.” My eyes light up. A letter! Of course, a letter! Alberto and I send letters all the time! Grandma hands me the piece of paper. It’s slightly crumpled, but since it’s waterproof, it’s fine underwater.
“I guess I’ll leave you to it,” Grandma says from the doorway with a wing before ducking out to join my parents in the dining area.
I open the letter that was carefully folded. My heart skips a beat when I see my name in Alberto’s handwriting.
“Caro, Luca
I’m very sorry I missed our meeting last night, and I want to make it up to you. I can explain everything if you meet me by the fountain two hours before dinner. Trust me, I won’t let you down.
Love,
Alberto Scorfano ♡”
I feel butterflies in my stomach, fluttering around as if they have no dignity. I reread the letter multiple times, just to make sure I’m not going crazy. I compose myself as I get ready for the day. When I meet my parents in the dining room, they're talking about something mundane that I can barely hear over the thoughts racing in my head. I tell my parents that I’m meeting up with Alberto before dinner, and they begrudgingly tell me to go before I’m late. I swim as fast as I can to land.
The sun is bright in the sky. I swim up the shore, dodging coral and fish. When I get to land, I shake off all of the water and straighten out my clothes. I wear a dark blue plaid flannel, similar to the shirt Alberto gave me a year ago. I also wear blue shorts that almost match the color of the sky. I look into my reflection in the water, checking if my hair looks okay. No matter how hard I try not to, I always want to look nice for Alberto. He just makes me want to be better, and I don’t know why. But that is not for me to worry about right now because I’m late.
I walk up the steps of the dock, feeling the cold stone underneath my feet. I pass Giulia’s house, where I can hear Massimo singing along to an aria. The fountain in the middle of the square is even more beautiful than I remember it being. The giant statue of a man killing a sea monster is replaced with a beautiful sculpture of two boys, a human and a sea monster, playing on the shore.
I walk up to the fountain to see Alberto on the other side of it, admiring every bit of the fountain. His eyes soften as he sees me approaching him. I look at the ground, suddenly aware I’ve been staring. When I meet his eyes again, he smiles and envelops me in a hug. His arms are strong around me, holding me as though he couldn’t wait another minute to hold me in his tight grip. I hold him just as tight. He smells like gelato and saltwater, a smell I never knew I needed.
“Luca…” Alberto whispers in my ear. Hearing my name on his lips makes my spine shiver and my heart pound against my chest. Why am I feeling this way?
When we finally break apart, warm summer air rushes into the space between us. I look into Alberto’s deep brown eyes.
“I’m sorry I didn’t make it last night,” He says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I really tried to get away, but Massimo had me go fishing right after I got home from work. He said something about the weather conditions. By the time I had finished, you weren’t on the island.” He looks down at the ground, fiddling with his hands and shuffling his feet. “So I brought a letter to your house. It really sucks we don’t live together anymore, right?” He chuckles nervously.
“Alberto, I’m not mad at you,” I put my hand on his shoulder, “…Okay, maybe I was at first, but not anymore. I know it’s different for me to be living with my parents, but I think they need this.” I squeeze his shoulder before letting go.
“Anyways,” I say. “I was told you would ‘make it up to me.’” I take a step closer to him as his eyes light up.
“Of course! I have a surprise for you, but you have to close your eyes. I brought a blindfold because I know you’ll peek.” Seeing him this excited makes my smile grow even bigger.
I close my eyes, and he wraps a blindfold around my head. I hear some rustling as he takes my arm and starts leading me down the roads of Portorosso. Once we’ve passed the roads I remember, Alberto stops.
“Do you trust me?” He asks.
Without missing a beat, I reply, “Always.” Then he takes me onto a dirt path with him as my only source of direction.
***
“Another big rock ahead,” Alberto says.
“That’s not very descriptive,” I say, out of breath from the many times I’ve almost fallen face-first to the ground.
“That’s okay, we’re almost there anyway.”Alberto leads me to the right. “Okay, I’m almost done, but I need you to wait like one more minute so I can get ready.” He shuffles around, and I hear plastic and fabric rustling.
“Are you almost done?” I ask, knowing this was definitely more than one minute. I hear a few more things before it all goes quiet, and the only thing I can hear is mine and Alberto’s breath.
“You can take off the blindfold now,” He tells me. I reach up to my face and take off the blindfold. My eyes struggle to adjust to the light, even though the sun is about to set. I see green everywhere, only broken up by the red and white checkered picnic blanket and Alberto in front of me. He stands in front of a forest of giant trees with breaks in between them of grass and dirt. The greenery eventually leads to a sand shore. We stand on top of a hill underneath the shade of a tree. Alberto holds a bouquet of red carnations, one of my favorite flowers, mixed with white lilies, his favorite flower.
Alberto looks at me as if he’s waiting for my approval. I walk up to him. He offers me the bouquet with a shy smile. I take the small cluster of flowers and hold them to my nose to smell.
“What… do you think?” He asks. I gesture for him to sit down on the blanket, he does and I join him.
“I think it’s perfect. Thank you, Alberto.” I look at the sunset, feeling his eyes on me. I set the bouquet down carefully and tuck my knees into my chest. “How did you find this place?” I ask, turning to look at him. He sticks out his chest with pride as he starts explaining.
“I had been working all day, and it was almost time for dinner. I told Massimo I was just gonna go for a short walk. He told me to be back soon because dinner was almost ready. I started walking around Portorosso, looking for someplace new that I hadn’t gone to before, and I found a dirt path that led to this giant forest that overlooks the sea. I really liked this hill when I found it because of the awesome view. There’s also a path straight to the sea just down the side of it. I ended up being late for dinner, and I told Massimo I got lost because I wanted to share this place with you first.” He blushes, “It’s kinda silly, now that I think about it.” He chuckles.
“Well, I’m glad you shared this with me. It can be our special spot, like the island!” I tell him. He smiles.
“Yeah,” A moment passes where we just look at each other, saying nothing. I start blushing like crazy. What is going on!? I decide not to linger on my feelings for long.
“So… Are there snacks in that picnic basket?” I ask to break the silence. He looks at the picnic basket as if he had forgotten it was even there. He opens it up.
“You do remember we’re having dinner with your family in about an hour, right?” He pulls out a small book from the picnic basket and hands it to me.
“What’s this?” I ask, opening the book to the first page. It’s the only page that has anything on it. Alberto wrote today's date and a short journal entry of what he had planned. I look up to see Alberto smiling at me.
“It’s a journal scrapbook, Giulia gave me the idea last night. We can both write in it or add pictures and stuff like that. We can even do it while you’re at school by mailing it back and forth. I already wrote in it for today, I figured you might want to do the same.” I close the book and put a hand on the front cover. I smile at him. I set the book down and shuffle over to where he is sitting, and I hug him. My arms wrap tight around his neck, my heart pounding. He hugs me back, and I can feel his bare arms graze the skin where my shirt rides up. The butterflies in my stomach flutter, but this time it’s not because I’m nervous, but because I’m happy.
I give Alberto a tight squeeze before letting go. I look at the rapidly setting sun and sigh. “I guess it’s time for us to leave,” I say, moving to get to my feet. He pulls me down by my sleeve.
“Wait!” Our faces are only inches apart. I feel heat rising to my cheeks as I glance down at his lips. I suddenly feel the urge to kiss him. What am I doing!? Why would I want to kiss Alberto? I back away from him slowly.
“What is it?” I ask as if I hadn’t almost kissed my best friend. He clears his throat.
“Oh! – um… It’s uhh– It’s nothing! Nothing at all, let’s just leave.” He nods, straightening out his tank top and messing with his hair. He mumbles to himself as he cleans up the picnic. I pick up my flowers and smell them again before following him down the path.
***
When we get back, the sun is fully set, and there’s an awkward silence between me and Alberto. Massimo, Giulia, and my parents are all waiting for us when we arrive. Alberto tells them that he has to put the picnic basket away and leaves for his room. Which leaves me alone with everyone else. I sit by Giulia, leaving a seat for Alberto on my right. They had already started eating by the time I got there. Massimo had cooked trenette al pesto for our first dinner at home.
“How was your picnic with Alberto?” Giulia whispers in my ear. My eyes widen.
“He told you what he was gonna do!?” I whisper back.
She rolls her eyes, “Of course he did! Did he give you the flowers?”
I blush, remembering the flowers I gave to Alberto to put in a vase because I couldn’t bring them underwater. I nod. Giulia smirks, turning back to join the adults in their conversation. Alberto joins us a few minutes later, and that is when the questioning begins.
***
“What was your favorite thing that you learned?” Mom asks, and I figure that since Giulia answered almost every question, I should probably answer this one.
“I really like learning about the stars and planets,” I say timidly, “Did you know that sunsets on Mars are blue?” I ask, gaining confidence. I look at Alberto, who’s looking at me with curiosity. “Yeah, and aloof the other planets in the solar system could fit in the space between Earth and the Moon.”
“That’s really cool!” Mom says, “What about you, Giulia?” And just like that, the conversation moves on. Alberto is still looking at me, though. I try to ignore it and eat my dinner, but my heart skips a beat every time his eyes flick back to me. I answer a few more questions before my parents say it’s time to go. I hug Giulia and Massimo goodbye before pausing at Alberto. I squeeze him extra tight and whisper in his ear, “Meet me on the island for lunch tomorrow.” I let go and wave as I walk out the door. I smile as I see Alberto’s confused face, then the door shuts.