9. Baleigh
BALEIGH
The heavy wooden door to the residence hall clicks shut behind me, but the latch sounds too much like a period at the end of a sentence I’m not finished reading.
My room will be silent. It will smell like laundry detergent and old stone, and the walls will feel three feet closer than they did this morning.
I turn back toward the street. My legs ache from a day of chasing Atticus through stairwells and hidden alleys, but the rest of me is vibrating. I can't just sit on a twin-sized mattress and scroll through photos.
I head for the stairs leading up to San Miniato al Monte.
The climb is steep, but I take it with a pace that would have left me gasping two weeks ago.
Now, my lungs just feel open. By the time I reach the marble facade of the church, the horizon is a bruised purple, bleeding into a vibrant, electric orange.
I find a spot on the steps and let out a breath that feels like it’s been held since my plane touched down at Peretola.
Below me, Florence isn't a postcard anymore. It’s a living thing.
I can pick out the landmarks without a map.
There’s the Palazzo Vecchio, standing like a stubborn sentinel.
There’s the Duomo, its red tiles glowing like a banked fire.
I know the shortcut from that piazza to the gelateria with the best lavender honey flavor.
I know which cobblestones are loose near the bridge and which street performers play the cello near the Uffizi at dusk.
A few weeks ago, the city was a roar of noise and confusing signs. Now, I recognize the rhythm of the vespas and the specific chime of the bells. It feels less like a destination, more like a neighborhood.
The thought should be comforting, but it lands in my stomach with a heavy thud. In North Carolina, my life is a process of "whens." When I get home, I’ll finish that certification. When I get home, I’ll help Mom with the garden. When I get home, things go back to the way they’ve always been.
I gaze down at my hands, still holding the camera Atticus praised.
The idea of tucking all this away into a photo album—of returning to a version of Baleigh who doesn't know how to navigate a foreign city or how it feels to be seen by three completely different, incredible men—feels like a betrayal. I’m not just visiting Italy.
I’m mourning the version of myself that’s supposed to leave it.
The vibration in my pocket snaps me out of the gloom. I pull out my phone to find a message from Max.
The Accademia itinerary is set for tomorrow. I trust you have the student rosters sorted? Also, I found that essay on Brunelleschi we discussed. I’ll bring it for you.
I gaze at the screen, a slow heat rising to my cheeks.
He doesn’t just ask for the data; he assumes I have it under control.
Max has this way of looking at me—not as the girl who got lost on the way to orientation, but as a peer.
When we sat in that quiet corner of the library last Tuesday, he didn’t laugh when I told him I secretly wanted to design educational curricula that felt like an adventure.
Instead, he leaned in, his glasses sliding down his nose, and asked me exactly how I’d structure the first semester.
He treats my thoughts like they have weight. Around him, the "maybe" and "I think" words I usually lean on evaporate. I am a woman who carries a briefcase instead of just a backpack. I feel solid. I feel like someone worth listening to.
"You’re doing that thing again."
I jump, clutching my phone to my chest. Amos stands a few feet away, leaning against a stone pillar with two paper cups of gelato and a pair of plastic spoons sticking out of his mouth like tusks.
He looks rumpled—his linen shirt is creased and his hair is a chaotic mess of sandy waves—but he’s grinning like he just won a bet.
"What thing?" I ask, trying to smooth my hair.
"The 'Oh no, I'm thinking too hard' face." He pulls the spoons out of his mouth and offers me a cup. "Stop it. It’s bad for the complexion. Here, this is pistachio and sea salt. Don't fight me on the salt, just eat it."
I take the cup, the cold cardboard a relief against my palms. "Did you follow me up here?"
"I’m the coordinator, Baleigh. It’s my job to find lost Americans and feed them dairy.
" He hops onto the ledge beside me, swinging his legs. He spends ten minutes telling me about a student who tried to wash his laundry in a public fountain, doing all the voices until I’m doubled over, clutching my ribs.
My somber mood from ten minutes ago feels ridiculous now. Amos makes life feel like a series of punchlines rather than a series of hurdles. When he finally stands up, checking his watch for a meeting with the bursar, he ruffles my hair.
"Don't stay up here too long, North Carolina. I need you sharp for tomorrow."
He jogs down the steps, whistling a stray tune, and I realize the weight in my chest has lifted.
He doesn't just bring gelato; he brings the permission to breathe. In the silence he leaves behind, I realize I’m not just falling for a city.
I’m falling for the ways these men make me feel like a version of myself I never knew existed.
The gelato cup is empty. I set it on the stone ledge and pull my camera from its bag, the screen’s glow cutting through the deepening twilight. I scroll past the blurred shots of the Duomo and the standard tourist vistas, pausing instead on the collection from this afternoon.
Atticus didn't just take me to see the sights; he pulled me into the city’s marrow.
My thumb hovers over a shot of a rusted iron gate wrapped in dying wisteria.
He’d made me wait twenty minutes for the sun to hit the metal just right, whispered instructions about aperture and patience until the world narrowed down to that single sliver of light.
I see Florence differently through his lens.
It isn't a museum anymore—it’s a collection of secrets.
I linger on a photo of a faded fresco in a drafty courtyard, the saint’s face half-erased by time but still striking.
Then I hit the next frame. It’s a candid he didn’t know I took—him leaning against a terracotta wall, checking his light meter, his brow furrowed in that intense, quiet concentration that makes the world feel like background noise.
My heart gives a treacherous little kick. The most beautiful things I captured today aren't the architecture or the history. They’re the way he looks when he’s lost in a moment.
Night finally claims the city. The streetlamps flicker to life below, casting long, amber shadows across the piazzas. I tuck the camera away and wrap my arms around my knees, trying to reconcile the three versions of Baleigh currently battling for space in my head.
It’s an impossible pattern. Max makes me want to be better, smarter—he sees a professional future for me that I was too scared to even dream of back home.
Amos makes me want to be braver, louder—he’s the one who gets me to jump into the chaos and find the humor in the mess.
And Atticus? He makes me want to stop and look.
I feel like the world is a masterpiece waiting to be noticed.
Instead of the feelings cancelling each other out, they’re braided together. Max gives me the foundation, Amos gives me the spark, and Atticus gives me the vision. How am I supposed to choose a direction when each of them is showing me a different, beautiful way to be alive?
I’m becoming a person I don’t recognize, a woman who belongs to this city and these possibilities.
But as the bells of San Miniato toll the hour, the sound reminds me that time is a predator.
Every day I spend discovering who I am here is a day closer to the version of myself that has a return ticket.
The bells of San Miniato don't just mark the hour; they vibrate through the stone beneath me and settle deep in my marrow. The sound is a heavy, bronze truth. I’ve been playing a game with myself, categorizing them like specimens in one of Max’s history books.
Amos is the fun one. Max is the mentor. Atticus is the muse.
It’s a neat, tidy way to keep my heart from leaking into my shoes.
But sitting here in the dark, with the aroma of pine and exhaust clinging to my skin, the lie falls apart.
I’m not just flattered by the attention.
I’m not just enjoying the novelty of being a new person in an old world.
I am falling, in three distinct and terrifying directions, and there isn't a safety net in sight. My pulse jumps at a text from Max because I want his respect, yes, but I also want to see that rare, slow smile that softens the hard line of his jaw. I laugh with Amos because he’s vibrant, but my skin prickles when his hand brushes mine, a physical pull that makes me want to stop being the "good girl" from North Carolina. And Atticus—he stares at me as though I’m the only thing in this city worth capturing, and I find myself wanting to be every secret he ever discovers.
The realization is a dizzying spike of adrenaline.
It’s exhilarating to feel this much, to be this alive, to realize that the small-town girl who was afraid to pick a different brand of laundry detergent is now navigating a multi-layered tangle of the heart.
For the very first time in my life, isn't just following a map; I'm the one drawing the lines.
But the fear follows right behind the thrill, cold and sharp.
This isn't a romantic comedy where the credits roll and everyone stays frozen in a happy ending. This is a six-week program with a hard expiration date. I’m building a house on a fault line.
What happens when the six weeks are up? What happens when these three men, who are colleagues and friends, realize that the quiet assistant from the American South is losing her mind over all of them?
I stand up, my legs trembling slightly, and look down at the city of lilies. Florence is beautiful because it’s layered, stone upon stone, story upon story. I’m becoming a city of my own, full of new ruins and rising towers, but I have no clue how to live in the wreckage I’m creating.