14. Atticus
ATTICUS
The air at four in the morning tastes of ancient stone and damp river mist. Florence doesn't sleep; it pauses, exhaling the exhaust of a million tourists to make room for the scent of yeast and espresso.
I wait by the heavy iron gate of the student residence, checking the shutter speed on my Leica.
A soft click of a lock and then Baleigh appears.
She wears a thick sweater and jeans, her hair pulled back in a messy knot that probably took three minutes but looks like art.
Her eyes are heavy with sleep, tracing the orange glow of the street lamps reflecting off the cobblestones.
"I didn't think four a.m. actually existed," she whispers, her voice a low husk that vibrates in the quiet.
"It’s the only time the city belongs to itself." I hand her the spare Fuji. "Ready to see the guts of the place?"
We move through the narrow alleys of the Oltrarno.
There are no crowds, no selfie sticks. Just the rhythmic thrum-thrum of a delivery truck and the distant clang of a metal shutter rising.
We walk in a comfortable silence, our footsteps echoing against the plastered walls.
I usually prefer this solitude—it’s my meditation—but having her beside me feels like a missing frame finally clicking into a reel.
"Smell that?" I ask, pausing outside a nondescript door with flour-dusted edges.
She inhales deeply, a smile spreading across her face. "Fresh bread. It’s like a hug."
Inside, three men in white singlets move like dancers.
I show Baleigh how to stay in the shadows, how to let them forget we’re there.
I expect her to focus on the golden crusts or the dramatic lighting of the ovens.
Instead, through my own viewfinder, I see her lens tilted toward the oldest baker.
He’s pausing to wipe sweat from his brow, a brief moment of exhaustion and pride in the curve of his shoulders.
Later, at the flower market, she ignores the sweeping rows of sunflowers. She waits until a vendor hands a single, wilted rose to a stray cat, her finger clicking the shutter at the exact moment of contact.
"You're not looking at the geometry," I say, leaning in close to see the preview on her screen.
"The lines are pretty," she says, her eyes bright. "But look at his face. He’s been here since three, and he still has enough kindness for a cat."
I look at her, not the screen. Most people try to master the light. Baleigh captures the heartbeat. It’s an instinct you can’t manufacture—a raw, empathetic lens that makes the world feel smaller and warmer than it has any right to be.
The sun bleeds a pale violet over the Arno. We sit at a tiny zinc table outside a café that hasn’t yet put out its chairs. The barista, a man with skin like parchment, sets two tiny cups of liquid obsidian between us and retreats into the shadows of the bar.
Baleigh cradles the warm ceramic, her gaze drifting to the camera resting on my lap.
"You're always framing things," she says, voice soft, competing only with the rush of the river. "Even when you’re just sitting there. I see your eyes darting, measuring the light. Do you ever just... exist in the scene without trying to capture it?"
"If I don’t capture it, it’s gone," I say, though the defense feels flimsy this morning. "The camera is a shield. It gives me a reason to be in the room without having to be of the room."
"Is that why there are no photos of you in your portfolio? I looked you up, you know. Plenty of ruins, plenty of strangers. Zero Atticus." She tilts her head. "Are you hiding, or just incredibly modest?"
I stir a sugar cube into my espresso, watching the dark swirl. Usually, I’d crack a joke about my face ruining the composition. But the stillness of the city has stripped away my usual armor.
"Neither, maybe." I gaze at the water. "My father wanted me to run the firm. Three generations of Belmonts in one office. When I left for Europe, I promised I’d be back by autumn. That was twelve years ago."
Baleigh stays quiet, letting the confession settle.
"They stopped asking after year five," I continue, surprised by the sudden ache in my throat. "The postcards got shorter. My sister’s kids don't know my voice, just the stamps on the envelopes. It’s easier to stay behind the lens because if I’m the one looking, I don’t have to see what I’ve walked away from. "
I look up, expecting pity or a practical suggestion on how to fix it—the kind of advice people give when they have deep roots. Instead, she reaches out, her thumb grazing the back of my hand. Her skin is warm against the morning chill.
"You moved toward the light you needed," she says. "That doesn't mean you're lost."
Her touch creates a dangerous gravity. For a second, the urge to tell her everything—how lonely the road actually gets, how much I hate the silence of hotel rooms—is a physical weight in my chest.
The warmth of her thumb on my skin is a live wire.
I feel the current of her empathy, a pull so strong it threatens to drag me out of my carefully curated shadows.
My pulse hammers against my collarbone. It’s the feeling of a shutter staying open too long—too much light, too much exposure. The image is going to wash out.
I pull my hand away to pick up my camera, the metal cold and familiar in my grip.
"Check the light on the Duomo," I say, voice clipping the air, staccato and professional. "If we don’t get to the bridge in five minutes, the shadows will lose their depth. The perfect, light-filled hour doesn't wait for us to get poetic."
The softness in Baleigh’s eyes doesn't vanish; it curdles. She pulls her hand back to her lap, her fingers curling into her palm as if she’s catching the heat I just rejected.
"Right," she says. The word is flat, a lead weight dropped into the river. "Back to the work."
"It’s not just work. It’s the craft." I stand up, tossing a few coins onto the table. The clatter is too loud. "You can’t get distracted by the narrative or you'll miss the shot. People come and go, Baleigh. The architecture is the only thing that stays still long enough to rely on."
I start walking toward the Ponte Vecchio, my stride intentional and hurried.
I don't look back to see if she's following.
I know she is. I can hear the soft scuff of her sandals.
I talk about aperture settings and the history of the Medici bank, filling the silence with a lecture she didn't ask for. I’m a tour guide now. A professional.
Anything but the man who just admitted his life is a progression of ghosts.
We reach the stone railing overlooking the Arno. The sun has finally cleared the rooftops, turning the water into a sheet of hammered copper. We stand side-by-side, our cameras raised. The silence between us isn't comfortable anymore; it’s thick with the things I just choked off.
After a few minutes of mechanical clicking, Baleigh lowers her Fuji. She doesn't look at the view. She studies me.
"You’re very good at that," she says quietly.
"The composition?"
"The disappearing act." She gestures to the city around us. "You tell me to look at the light and the lines, but you’re just building a wall out of them. It’s easier to tell their stories, isn't it?
If you're busy documenting everyone else's life, no one notices yours is empty of people who actually stay. "
The truth hits like a painful physical blow to the solar plexus.
I try to find a witty retort, a bit of travel-worn wisdom to deflect her, but the words die in my throat.
She sees the lens, but she also sees the eye behind it—and the man trying to hide behind that eye.
At last, I feel completely, terrifyingly visible.
The sunlight hits the vendor’s stall, igniting the buckets of peonies into a riot of impossible pinks. I lift my Leica, my thumb hovering over the dial, but my hands don't move. I’m watching Baleigh instead.
She’s found a grandmother and child arranging small bundles of lavender.
Baleigh isn't just taking a picture; she’s leaning into their space, mimicking the old woman’s toothless grin with a bright, genuine radiance of her own.
She captures the light catching the dust motes around their heads, turning a mundane morning transaction into something sacred.
A sharp, cold realization pierces the fog of my detachment.
I’ve spent a long time convincing myself that my life is full because my passport is thick, but standing here, I feel just like a ghost rattling a chain.
I’m the man on the periphery, the chronicler of other people’s joy, always leaving before the film can be developed.
Looking at Baleigh, I feel the sudden, terrifying itch to drop the camera and step into the frame.
I imagine what it would be like. To wake up and not have to calculate the distance to the next train station. To tell her about the night I spent in a rain-slicked doorway in Prague, not as a colorful anecdote for an article, but as a confession of how truly alone I was.
But if I let her in, the curated version of Atticus Belmont—the effortless traveler, the man with the easy smile and the perfect shot—dies.
She’d see the cracks. She’d see the profound selfishness of someone who ran away from his responsibilities because he was too cowardly to be bored.
She’d see that my freedom isn't a choice anymore; it’s a cage I built to keep from being found out.
The vendor laughs, a loud, raspy sound that startles a flock of pigeons into the air. Baleigh laughs with her, the sound rich and grounded. She turns toward me, her face flushed with the success of the shot, her eyes searching for my approval.
My chest tightens. Every survival instinct I own screams at me to turn away, to go find a different angle, to keep the distance exactly where it is.
But as she starts walking toward me, her floral dress catching the golden Italian light, I don't move. I just stand there, paralyzed by the lure of a life I’m not sure I’m brave enough to lead.