Risk the Fall

by Steph Campbell

  “I wish you could walk me the entire way,” I say. I can’t swallow the stinging lump in my throat this time and tears spill over.

  “Shhh. Baby, don’t cry,” Ben says. He wipes my cheeks with his thumbs. “We’ll talk all the time. And you’re going to be so busy and learning so much—”

  “I know. That’s the point. I’m doing all of this and you’ll be sitting at home alone.”

  What started off as silent tears falling has turned into full-on idiotic sobbing.

  Ben interrupts my theatrics with his signature raspy chuckle. “I can handle a little alone time, Quinn.” He’s smirking in a delicious way that I can’t help but smile back at. I swipe at the stupid tears, trying my best to make them stop.

  “What are you thinking?” I ask. I glance at the growing line at security, and then back to Ben and those gorgeous brown eyes that I don’t want to leave yet. Ever.

  “Quinn, there's a whole hell of a lot running through my mind right now, and absolutely none of it is G-rated, so you’d better get on that plane,” Ben says. He grins and nods toward the line. He’s trying to make it easier for me, but it doesn’t help. I don’t want to go. “Come here.” He pulls me in and wraps his hand around the back of my neck, his fingers tangling into the low braid and kisses me.

  “I love you,” I say against his lips.

  “I love you.” It’s the millionth time I’ve heard it, but it hasn’t lost a single ounce of meaning for me. If anything, it feels like this time, this way, is a whole new version, and one I needed to hear at this exact moment. “Now go.” His voice goes from achingly sweet to rough in an instant, like he’s shooing some wild animal he tried to make his pet back home to the woods.

  Ugh. Bad metaphor on so many levels.

  I don’t prolong the torture, just whirl around and rush away, not looking back, and knowing that he’ll know it’s not because I’m so excited or blasé or composed. It’s because this is wrecking me. Finally, walking away from what I love is the hard thing for me, and it’s immeasurably harder than I was prepared for. Walking away used to be this mix of sadness with a heavy dollop of relief. Now I feel weighted and gutted and torn apart all at once.

  I make my way onto the plane and stare out the window at the tarmac, my hands gripped in my lap, and wait for stomach-dropping minute of time when my body is adjusting to leaving earth and hurtling through air. I wait for that minute so I can remember that the fear of something new is normal, but the stress of the last few days must be more than I anticipated, because I’m asleep before we even leave the ground.

  The pilot’s voice interrupts my catnap and I jerk upright in my seat and wipe the drool from the corner of my mouth. “I’d like to thank you all for traveling with us today, and would like to welcome you to Rome. I hope you’ll enjoy your stay here, or wherever your final destination is.”

  The plane bumps along the runway, and the other passengers give the pilot a boisterous round of applause. I’ve never understood this concept. Bravo on doing your job and not killing us, Captain! Still, I feel my cynical heart melt a little bit at the announcement that we are officially on Italian soil.

  Part of me feels like this can’t even be real. Because people like me don’t get these types of opportunities. Screw ups don’t end up with guys like Ben. Or in Italy.

  Except it has actually happened. Ben is mine, and I’m here.

  It isn’t long before I’ve collected my luggage, boarded the sleek yellow and white EuroStar train, and have arrived in my home for the next month- Spello.

  I collect my large, red suitcase and head out of the train station in search of the home I’ll be staying in. There are only a handful of students in the program, so we’re each staying with a resident of the tiny as hell town. I stop on the steps outside of the station and take in the gorgeous little hilltop medieval town.

  The sun is high and bright, and the sky is a pure, sweet blue. The entire town seems baked by the sun’s glow, and there’s this kind of bleached-clean beauty that makes even the occasional broken shutter and toppled garbage can with its rolling green wine bottle seem quaint. Its cute laned ways are filled with potted flowers, so spots of red and pink and white add pretty bursts to the cracking stone steps. The cobbled streets are as treacherous as they are gorgeous, with missing stones and uneven, jutting shards and deep cracks. The ancient brick and stone houses don’t feel like they should have satellite dishes and plastic watering cans and mail boxes full of bills, but they do, of course. As much as they seem like bizarre relics of ancient history to me, for everyone who lives in them, they’re just home.

  There are endless vistas of rolling hills dotted with brown and green trees and stone archways carved with intricate designs and Latin inscriptions. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life, and I feel like I could have traveled in a tornado or through a wardrobe to get here. How the hell is this only a plane ride away from my normal life?

  I pull my map out of my purse, though I seriously doubt I’ll need it in a town this small, and start up the cobbled walkway, careful not to break my ass. The lane curves and twists up the hillside, and I am so thankful for my laidback attire by the time I reach the stone villa. I knock lightly once, then again, but there isn’t an answer at the door.

  Crap.

  I dig through my carry-on bag and pull out the wadded up piece of paper with the address and double check that I’m at the right place. I don’t know how to get to the back of the house, and I don’t want to stand out front. That only leaves one option.

  Find food.

  The bell above the door jingles as I push through it. I barely take a single step inside the small shop before I’m greeted by the most amazing medley of smells my nose has ever met— garlic and herbs and meat and bread. Sweet and savory scents intertwine in ways that shouldn’t meld together and smell like heaven— but do. The stone walls are lined from floor-to-ceiling with dark wood shelves stocked full of wine bottles, so high that there’s a ladder propped against the shelves to reach the top items. There’s a crystal chandelier hanging in the center of the room that should overpower the small space, but it doesn’t. Everything about the space is contradictory, yet perfect.

  “Buonasera!” I female voice calls from behind the long counter.

  “Buongiorno!” I reply. My Italian accent is severely lacking, but it’s one of the three-or-so phrases I was able to learn before leaving. I walk to the side of the store that the voice came from, stopping to inhale deeply with every single step. The smells only intensify the empty, gnawing feeling in my stomach. I haven’t had anything to eat since the bag of pretzels on my first plane ride this morning. When I pass the massive display of cheese wheels, I’m surprised by the woman who greets me. I expected someone older based on the voice when I came in.

  Instead, a perfectly curvy, olive-skinned woman in her thirties, I would guess, is sitting behind the counter next to an industrial meat slicer.

  “Posso aiutarla?” she says.

  I wring my palms together like I’m dry washing them and bite my lip. “Posso aiutarla?” I repeat back, the words fumbling off of my tongue in my bastardized version of the language.

  The woman puffs her cheeks and blows out a big breath in annoyance. “I said, may I help you?”

  I let out a shaky laugh, “Oh, thank god you speak English.”

  She nods and wipes her hands on the front of her apron. “I do.”

  “I’m sorry, I just…I didn’t have a lot of notice before this trip, and I don’t speak a lot of Italian. Or any. Or whatever.”

  “You are with the American school?” she asks.

  I nod and take a few steps toward her. “I just got here, but my room isn’t ready.”

  “You arrived early. I was going to go home to let you in when I left for siesta. Sit down, I’ll make you a sandwich while you wait.”

  “Are you the owner of the Bianchi house?”

  “Si.”

  “I’m Quinn,” I say. I offer my hand to shake
, but she leans in and kisses each of my cheeks instead. It should be weird. I hate having people up in my bubble, but it doesn’t feel awkward. Instead, it feels friendly and comfortable.

  “Amalea,” she says. “Sit.” She motions to the round, rod-iron table in the corner of the small shop and I do as I’m told. I stare up at the handwritten menu and find myself fighting the urge to run away right now, before I’ve even been to a single day of class. Because I can’t read a single word of that menu, and how the hell am I supposed to make it here for two months? “Would you like a drink?” Amalea asks, interrupting my internal-panic-attack.

  “Cappuccino, please,” I answer.

  She shakes her head and makes a ‘tisk-tisk’ noise with her tongue. “I’ll make you a Caffè alla Nocciola.”

  Shit, I already forgot the one rule Carter told me before I left: never order a cappuccino after eleven AM, or you’ll look like an asshole tourist. I nod appreciatively even though I don’t have the slightest clue what she just offered me. I do know that she just placed the most incredible looking sandwich I’ve ever laid eyes on onto the table, and it’s all I can do to not grab the thing and start tearing into it like an animal.

  “This looks incredible, thank you.” I pick up the flaky Panini-style sandwich full of cured meat and creamy cheese and pesto oozing gorgeously out of the sides and I take a less than lady-like sized bite. “Oh my god, this tastes incredible.”

  “Prego,” Amalea says. “You finish eating and I’ll take you to the house.”

  Amalea wanders back behind the counter, and I devour my sandwich.

  I slide my cell phone out of my pocket, and frown when I realize I have next-to-no signal. Figures. I seriously doubt there are any cell towers remotely close to Spello, which I guess is okay, because from the itinerary that the school gave me, it doesn’t look like I’ll have a whole lot of time for social stuff. Ben will understand. As much as we love being together, one thing I’ll never have to explain to Ben is getting lost in my art. It’s the same reason I let him off the hook night after night when he drags his cold ass to bed at ungodly hours and his chilly skin shocks me out of deep sleep. I get needing that release, having to answer that call. If I can forgive his freezing feet on my calves in the dead of night, he can forgive my craptastic cell service and need to devote myself to herb blends and the perfect homemade pasta consistency.

  After Amalea closes up the shop, we make the short walk back to her home, passing a woman selling flowers, a man selling cheese, and a stray chicken, but little else.

  “You live here alone?” I ask Amalea as she shows me up the tiny, narrow staircase to my room. It’s the only room on the second floor and it’s dark and poorly insulated. The weather outside is gorgeous, but inside the room it’s several degrees cooler. I hug myself to keep warm, hoping my discomfort isn’t obvious. There’s a single, thin blanket draped over the foot of the bed, and I make a mental note to try to find a street vendor that sells down comforters.

  “I do,” she says.

  I scanned the walls when I came in, looking for photos that might tell me more about the woman I’ll be sharing space with for the next few weeks. It’s a habit, thanks to Ben, to notice people’s photos, to try to dissect their lives based on those images. But other than a few religious pieces, Amalea’s walls were bare.

  “Must be quiet,” I say. Idiot. It’s obviously quiet. Which reminds me, it’s also quiet for Ben, who is stuck at home alone.

  “Do you mind if I make a call?” I ask. “Actually, do you know where I can get a decent signal?” I hold up my iPhone. While I get that calls will be limited, all decent girlfriends call their boyfriends to let them know when they’ve arrived safely in a foreign country. Even I know that.

  “Try the roof,” Amalea says. She points out of the room into the cramped space outside my bedroom. There’s a small cutout in the ceiling that I didn’t notice on the way up the stairs. That explains the draft. “Pull that chair over if you need a boost.”

  I wait until Amalea has left me in the space, and then do as she suggested, and slide the flimsy desk chair over to the hole in the ceiling and hoist myself up through it.

  The sun setting over the town looks like it is straight out of a movie as I crawl through the tiny space. I hold the phone up toward the sky, squinting to see the screen with the glare of the last bit of daylight. Sure enough, three solid bars. I don’t bother trying to calculate the time change because I know Ben will be waiting to hear how my flight was.

  But he doesn’t pick up.

  His voicemail message is one of the prerecorded deals, so I don’t even get to hear his voice. Though, I’d never admit that I miss his voice already— it hasn’t even been an entire day.

  “Hi, it’s me. So, I’m here. And it’s beautiful. And I’m watching the sunset and remembering how I said I never wanted to miss another sunset with you. So, I guess since I’m leaving you a message, you’re sort of here with me. Or not. That sounds really stupid. Okay. Well, I love you. I’ll call again soon.”

  I hang up the phone with more of that itching inside of me that says things are changing. Only now, even though I’m here, in Italy, it doesn’t feel like it’s changing for the better. I stand on the rooftop for a moment longer and take in the incredible view of the medieval village and gorgeous orchards, and gulp in a few deep breaths of fresh, Italian air to try to push my panic away. Because Ben in solid. He loves me. And I have to believe we’re okay.

  I don’t have school because of the holidays, and Ron, the photographer I work for, is on vacation, so there isn’t any work to do. I head into the studio anyway to develop a few rolls of film I’ve been carrying around for a while. I’m lucky to have found a boss who still has an actual darkroom and uses real film to take photographs, even if he shoots all digital for his clients.

  I eat lunch while I wait for the film to process, then go set up in the darkroom. I pull out the trays and line them up on the long table in the center of the room, then measure out the developer, stop, and fixer. I secure the first strip of negatives in the negative carrier, slide it into the enlarger, and flip the light of the enlarger on. After adjusting the focus nobs, the first image comes into focus.

  It’s Quinn. Caught off-guard the day we celebrated Christmas. Her lips are curled up into a snarky smirk that makes her look both annoyed and gorgeous.

  Seeing her reminds me of the last time I was in this room.

  I don’t have a chance to use the darkroom unless Ron is out of town. That weekend he was up in San Simeon for his sister’s wedding. Quinn and I had just finished finals that week and hadn’t seen a lot of each other, so she tagged along. She helped me mix the chemicals and wash the prints, but mostly just sat on the counter and talked to me while I worked. I asked her to refill one of the trays with fresh water for me while I worked on dodging the shadows in a photo of a couple of kids at the beach. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Quinn leaning over the stainless table and even in the dim, red light I could make out all of her sweet curves, or maybe I just had them memorized.

  “Why don’t you move that tray over to the left a little more, it’d be a better place for it,” I said.

  “This one?” Quinn asked, pointing to the stop bath.

  “Sure.” I smiled.

  “Yes, or no, Ben? Sure isn’t really a—” She shook her head and laughed. “Oh, I see what you’re doing there.”

  Quinn walked toward me, that brow arched in the confident way that turned me on every single time. Once she was within arm’s reach, I hooked my arm around her waist and pulled her in to me. Our lips easily captured each other’s, even in the near darkness, as if by instinct they knew just where to go.

  My hands wandered under the back of her shirt, unhooking her bra and then across the soft skin of her flat stomach and up to her breasts. I pushed her shirt up over her head and then caught one of her nipples between my fingers teasingly. Quinn arched her back and let out a soft moan that made my body explode with desire and
raw lust. Her hands worked their way down to my jeans, unzipping them and pushing them to the floor as I alternated between sucking and tugging on those perfect, pink nipples.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. Quinn’s mouth was on my throat, but her hands were fumbling with something behind us.

  “This,” she said. The room was drained of any light that had been as Quinn flipped the dim, red light off. I ran my hands up and down the length of her tiny body, pushing the thin cotton shorts to the floor. I slid her panties out of the way and was finally able to feel just how ready she was.

  Every touch was intensified being in the total darkness like this. I never knew where Quinn’s hands would end up next and the anticipation of the next kiss or touch was incredible. She would suck on my neck one minute and then I’d feel her lips on my chest. I was quickly learning not to even attempt to guess where she’d be next. But I wanted her. I wanted her so fucking badly. She pulled away for the briefest of seconds and I felt myself ache for more of her and my body shook with want.

  “Who told you to hold back?” she said.

  So I didn’t.

  Fuck, I miss my girlfriend.

  I miss her, but there’s still this part of me that feels like I need to let her go at this alone. I’m not ignoring her calls on purpose…I just haven’t called her back. Yet. I will. It’s like hearing her so far away is harder than not hearing from her at all. It’s easier to pretend that she’s waiting for me at home or will be home from work soon than to hear the thousands of miles between us on the other end of the phone.

  I decide to pack up my gear and head home, but as I’m locking up, my phone vibrates in my hand.

  “Hello,” I say.

  “Ben, it’s Ron, how’s things?”

  “Doing okay, just leaving the shop, I was up here using the darkroom. Is that okay?”