15. Baleigh
BALEIGH
The air in the courtyard tastes of damp stone and the faint, sweet decay of climbing jasmine.
I shouldn't be out here. The heavy wooden doors of the residence hall usually click shut at midnight, but the lock is temperamental, and my brain is louder than the curfew. Italy has a way of making sleep feel like a waste of a limited resource. Each time I close my eyes, I see the blur of the Tuscan countryside or the flash of Atticus’s guarded eyes, and the restlessness drives me back onto my feet.
I round the corner of the loggia, my footsteps echoing against the gravel, and stop short.
Max is sitting on a stone bench tucked beneath a shadow-drenched archway.
A pool of yellow light from a wrought-iron lantern spills over his shoulders, catching the grey at his temples.
He has a thick stack of student essays in his lap, the top page fluttering in the breeze, but his gaze is fixed on the darkened fountain in the square.
He looks less like the formidable Professor Brown, taking the shape of a man trying to solve a puzzle that has little to do with cultural history.
"The grading never actually ends, does it?" I ask, my voice sounding unnaturally loud in the stillness.
Max doesn't jump. He looks up slowly, a small, tired smile playing at the corner of his mouth as he adjusts his glasses.
"It’s a Hydra, Baleigh. You slay one pile of midterms, and two more appear by morning." He pats the bench beside him, a silent invitation. "And what are you doing prowling the halls at one in the morning? Plotting your escape to Rome already?"
I sink onto the cool stone, tucking my feet under my hem. "My head is too full. I think I’ve reached my capacity for beautiful things today. The move to Rome feels like starting a whole new book before I’ve finished the current chapter."
"Rome is a different beast entirely," he says, letting the papers slide onto the bench. He doesn't look back at them. "It's louder. More demanding. It doesn't ask for your attention like Florence; it grabs you by the throat and insists on it."
"You sound like you've spent half your life there."
"Enough to know that the quiet moments like this are the ones that actually matter." He turns toward me, his knee brushing mine. "Are you truly worried about the move, or is it something else? You’ve been... contemplative lately."
I pick at a loose thread on my dress, watching it fray. "I think I’m afraid of what happens when the six weeks are over. I’m starting to realize I don't know who I am when I’m not playing the part everyone back home wrote for me."
Max sighs, a heavy sound that seems to vibrate in the cool night air.
He removes his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose, looking suddenly years older.
"I spent twenty years building a fortress of credentials, Baleigh.
I thought if I published enough papers, spoke at enough conferences, and secured enough tenure, the satisfaction would finally settle in.
I chased the gold stars because they were measurable. "
He stares at me, his brown eyes vulnerable in the lamplight.
"You wake up one day and realize you’ve achieved everything you set out to do, yet the house is quiet and the success feels like paper.
I was so busy being the man the university expected me to be that I forgot to ask if that man was actually happy.
It turns out, professional recognition is a very cold bedfellow. "
The loneliness in his voice hits me like a physical weight. I always saw him as the anchor—the one who had it all figured out while the rest of us drifted. To see the cracks in that armor makes my heart ache. It also makes me feel less like a fraud for my own mess.
"I’ve spent most of my life doing the opposite," I whisper, the confession spilling forth before I can second-guess it.
"I didn't chase success. I chased safety.
Every time a door opened that looked even a little bit scary, I slammed it shut and stayed in the room I already knew.
I chose the jobs my parents liked, the boyfriends who were 'nice enough,' the path of least resistance. "
I look over my hands, twisted together in my lap.
"I thought avoiding failure was the same thing as winning. But sitting here, listening to you... I realize I’ve just been holding my breath for ten years.
I’ve been so terrified of disappointing people or making a mess of things that I never actually started living. "
"And now?" Max asks softly.
"Now I’m in Italy, and I’m terrified because I do not want to go back to the safety. I want the risk."
Max reaches out, his hand hovering over the bench before he rests his palm just inches from mine. The heat radiating from him is a physical pull.
"I look at you, Baleigh, and I see someone who thinks she’s behind," he says, voice dropping into a low, gravelly register. "But I see a woman who finally woke up. I wish I’d had that clarity at twenty-eight. I wish I’d had the courage to admit I was miserable in my ivory tower instead of pretending the air was better up there. "
"I don't feel brave," I admit, my pulse hammering against my ribs. I shift closer, my shoulder now pressed against his linen sleeve. "I’m a mess. I feel like I'm playing dress-up in someone else’s adventure."
"You aren't," he counters. He turns his body fully toward me, his knee anchoring us together.
"Authenticity is messy. If you weren't terrified, you wouldn't be doing it right. I’ve spent years watching students come and go, but very few of them actually let the world change them.
You're different. You’re wide open to it. That's really admirable."
He watches me with an intensity that makes the courtyard feel smaller, as if the ivy-covered walls are leaning in to listen.
I see the fine lines around his eyes and the way his mouth stays firm, even when he’s being soft.
I find myself wondering what he was like before the tenure and the salt-and-pepper hair—if there’s still a version of him that wants to burn the papers and disappear into the Roman streets.
"What would you do?" I ask, my voice barely a breath. "If you could go back and tell that younger Max anything?"
"I'd tell him that the things he's protecting aren't worth the cost of what he's missing."
I don’t move. I don't look away. The intellectual safety of "Professor" and "Assistant" has evaporated, replaced by a raw, magnetic current that makes my skin prickle.
He isn't grading me now, and I'm not seeking his approval.
We are just two people sitting in the dark, realizing the distance between us has become unbearable.
Max doesn’t move his hand, but the space between us vibrates. The silent acknowledgment of what we’ve both been sacrificing pulls tight like a drawstring. He sees me—really looks at me—not as a student or a colleague, but as a man who recognizes a mirror image of his own suppressed longing.
"It’s late," he says eventually, though his voice lacks any conviction. "You should probably get some rest before the morning bus."
"You're right." I stand, my knees feeling like they’re made of water.
He stands with me, towering over me in the shadows of the archway.
For a second, his hand brushes my forearm to steady me, a brief contact that sends a jolt straight to my core.
He doesn't pull away immediately. His thumb grazes the skin above my wrist, a slow, deliberate pressure that feels like a promise he isn't supposed to make.
"Goodnight, Baleigh," he murmurs.
"Goodnight, Max."
I turn and walk toward the dormitories, my sandals slapping rhythmically against the cool flagstones.
The air should feel refreshing, but it feels heavy, charged with the static of the last twenty minutes.
I don't look back, even though the nerves in the back of my neck are screaming that he’s still watching me.
I slip through the heavy doors and climb the stairs, the quiet of the residence hall feeling stifling compared to the electric darkness of the courtyard. When I reach my room, I don't turn on the light. I go straight to the window, leaning my forehead against the glass.
The reality of it hits me then, settling in my chest like lead.
This isn't just a crush on a brilliant professor or a flirtation born of Italian wine and starlight. This is substantial. It’s the weight of his loneliness meeting the vacuum of my own, a shared understanding that makes everything else—the program rules, the age gap, the professional boundaries—feel like flimsy cardboard walls.
The most terrifying part isn't that I want him. It’s the absolute certainty I saw in his eyes that he wants me, too.
He’s tired of being the anchor, and I’m tired of being the girl who never leaves the harbor.
We are standing on a precipice, and as I look out over the tiled roofs of Florence, I realize we’ve already stopped pretending the ground is solid.