17. Baleigh
BALEIGH
The morning light hitting the Arno looks different today.
Usually, the river reflects a muddy olive, but now it’s liquid gold, shimmering with a clarity that makes my chest ache.
I catch my reflection in a shop window on the Via dei Calzaiuoli and barely recognize the woman looking back.
There’s a softness in my eyes, a flush to my cheeks that really has nothing to do with the Tuscan sun and everything to do with the weight of Max’s hands on my skin.
Florence isn't a museum anymore. It’s a map of us.
I pass the gelateria where he debated the historical significance of pistachio with such gravity that I nearly choked on my cone.
I see the bench where he first challenged me to stop living for my family's approval.
Everywhere I look, the city feels stitched together by the low, gravelly timbre of his voice.
I walk with a spring in my step that feels dangerously like flying, my skirt snapping against my legs in the breeze, but when I see a calendar in a newsstand window, the air leaves my lungs.
Four weeks left.
"Leigh? Did you get the manifest for the Fiesole trip?"
I blink, coming back to the cramped program office. Amos is watching me, a stack of train tickets in his hand and a knowing, crooked tilt to his brow. I force a smile and shuffle the papers on my desk, my fingers shaking just enough that the staples bite into my thumb.
"Right here," I say thinly. "Just double-checking the student IDs."
I try to focus on the spreadsheets, but the names of fifty undergraduates blur into a single image: Max leaning over his desk, his sleeves rolled up, the salt-and-pepper hair catching the light.
I remember the way he paused last night, mid-sentence, just to pull me into him like I was the only fixed point in his universe.
My heart does a slow, heavy roll in my chest. This isn't just a fling. It’s not the impulsive "yes" I promised myself in North Carolina. This is an anchor, and I’m terrified of what happens when the ship pulls out of the harbor. I’ve spent so long being the girl who makes the safe, sensible choice, yet here I am, falling into a black hole for a man who lives five thousand miles away from my reality.
I look at the tickets. If I get too attached, the flight home won't just be an ending. It'll be an amputation.
The steam from my macchiato carries the scent of roasted beans and damp stone. We sit at a tiny marble table tucked into the corner of the piazza, our knees brushing under the wrought iron. Max’s hand rests on the table, his fingers tapping a rhythmic, thoughtful beat against the saucer.
"The Dean called this morning," he says, his gaze drifting toward the Duomo. "They’re putting my name forward for the Thander Fellowship."
I pause with my cup halfway to my lips. "That sounds significant."
"It’s a year-long research grant," he explains, a quiet intensity lighting up his eyes. "Archival work in London, then six months in Athens. I’d be tracing the evolution of civic identity through trade routes. It’s the kind of project I’ve been outlining in my head for a decade."
He looks back at me, a smile tugging at his lips—the kind of look he usually reserves for moments we’re alone. It’s an invitation to celebrate, to be proud of him. I feel the warmth of his success, yet beneath it, a cold, sharp blade of reality slices through my ribs.
"A year," I repeat. The word tastes like copper. "London. Then Athens."
"Nothing is set in stone yet," he says, reaching across to squeeze my hand. "It’s just a conversation. But for the very first time in my career, the timing feels like it might actually work."
I nod, forcing my facial muscles to arrange themselves into something supportive. "Max, that’s incredible. You deserve that."
He continues talking about the methodology, the archives, the logistics of a sabbatical. I watch his mouth move, but the sound fades into a dull hum. I’m thinking about my suitcase in the room on Via Ghibellina. I’m thinking about the return ticket to Raleigh-Durham currently sitting in my inbox.
The bubble doesn’t just burst; it evaporates.
Later, as I walk back to the office alone, the cobblestones feel harder beneath my sandals.
I’ve been treating this summer like a snow globe, a self-contained world where Max and I exist in a vacuum of art and espresso.
But time is hemorrhaging. Max is already mapping out a year where I don’t have a designated coordinate.
He isn't being cold—he’s being a man with a life, a career, and a trajectory that started long before I landed at Peretola.
Summer is a season, not a destination. And as the shadows lengthen over the piazza, I realize I’m the only one standing still.
The aroma of jasmine is heavier now, blooming in the humid heat that signals summer's peak. It should be sweet, but it’s like a funeral wreath for my expectations.
Every corner of the program office is a minefield. I sit at my desk, trying to organize the final excursion to Lucca, while the students chatter like starlings in the lobby. Their voices carry through the open door, sharp and frantic.
"I have to find a leather jacket for my dad before we leave," one girl says, her voice echoing off the stone walls. "I can’t believe we only have twenty-five days left. I’m not ready for real life again."
"My flight is at six a.m. on the thirtieth," her friend replies through a groan. "I’ve already started a countdown on my phone."
Twenty-five days. Each one feels like a grain of sand slipping through my fingers, and I don’t have enough grip to hold them back.
I see Max in the hallway, his face buried in a syllabus for his fall semester in the States, marking dates on a calendar that don’t include me.
Even the local barista, who usually greets me with a cheerful buongiorno, asks if I’ve enjoyed my stay, his words phrased in the past tense before I’ve even left.
The "adventure" has shifted. We aren't arriving anymore; we are departing.
My phone buzzes on the desk.
Dinner tonight at Santo Spirito? Amos’s message reads. No work talk. Just wine and those fried zucchini flowers you like. My treat for the hardest working assistant in Italy.
Before I can reply, a notification from Atticus pops up. He’s sent a link to a private gallery. I click it, and my breath hitches. It’s a series of candid shots of me from our last hike—my hair windblown, my face lit with a raw, unshielded joy I didn’t know I was capable of.
You look like you belong here, Baleigh, his caption says.
A knot of panic tightens in my throat. Max is my heart’s anchor, but Amos is the laughter that keeps me sane, and Atticus is the mirror showing me a version of myself I finally like. If I look at the calendar, I have to decide which of these threads to cut.
I take a deep breath and delete the flight countdown notification on my screen. I won't do it. I won't start the mourning process while the sun is still out. I type a quick reply to Amos: Count me in. Extra wine, please.
If I don't look at the clock, the hands can't move. For tonight, the end doesn't exist. There is only the wine, the light on the river, and the beautiful lie that I have all the time in the world.
The shutters of my small apartment rattle in a sudden gust of wind, the wood groaning against the stone frame.
I don’t turn on the overhead light. The amber glow from the streetlamp below filters through the slats, casting long, skeletal shadows across the floor.
It’s quiet enough to hear the hum of the refrigerator and the distant, rhythmic clacking of a late-night traveler’s suitcase wheels over the cobblestones.
I stand before the wall where I’ve pinned a paper calendar. It’s a cheap thing I bought at a gift shop near Santa Croce, featuring watercolors of the Tuscan countryside, but tonight it looks like a prison sentence.
I reach out, my index finger hovering over today’s date. Then I count. One week. Two.
The three remaining weeks look like crumbs.
I calculate the hours remaining until I have to stand in the terminal at Peretola, clutching a boarding pass that points toward a life I no longer recognize.
In twenty-five days, the heat of the Florence sun will be a memory.
The smell of Max’s espresso, the way Atticus tilts his head when he frames a shot, the chaotic safety of Amos’s laughter—it all shrinks into a series of photographs and "remember when" anecdotes.
My chest tightens, a cold, sharp ache blooming behind my ribs.
I’ve spent my entire life planning for the next milestone, the next expected step, yet the thought of the "next" waiting for me in North Carolina makes me want to scream. I’m not that girl anymore, but I haven't figured out how to be this new version of myself without the backdrop of these three men and this ancient city.
I grab the corner of the calendar page and fold it back, hiding the dates from view. The paper crinkles loudly in the silence. I don't want to see the numbers. I don't want to see the wall where the story stops.
I click off the small desk lamp, plunging the room into shadow.
I slide under the cool linen sheets and stare at the ceiling, my heart hammering a frantic, uneven beat.
I won't let the end bleed into the now. I’ll hoard every second, every glance, and every touch like a thief.
I make a silent, desperate vow to the dark: I will not mourn the end until the plane wheels leave the tarmac.
The future is coming, heavy and inevitable, but tonight, I simply refuse to look it in the eye.