*****
It was Rosetta's turn to choose a meeting spot that night. Luka and she had decided to take turns when it came to choosing where to visit one another. It grew easier to find each other every time they met, because there was more to focus on, more little things to cling to that would lead them exactly where they wanted to go. When searching for Luka, Rosetta had taken to thinking of his voice and the way it sounded when he called her Fiore, the way his fingers twitched when he spoke about his harp as if they were always itching to pluck it and make it sing, and the way she imagined her reflection would look in his eyes (the sight was no more than a daydream—souls had no reflections). She had decided on the way home that she hardly cared whether it was a cliché or not, and thus, she was now standing at the top of the Eiffel Tower, staring down at the famous City of Lights, simultaneously feeling the inexplicable fear of falling and the insatiable urge to fly. Illumination from streetlights and vehicles on the ground streamed through the busiest streets like tongues of fire along a path of kindling. If Rosetta turned her head at just the right angle, the pinpricks of light at the edge of the horizon seemed to mix with the canvas of the starry sky that was fading as dewy promises of daytime ushered it away.
"A bold choice," Luka's familiar voice caused Rosetta to turn, pointing her toes inward and smile to herself, "but a beautiful one." He tucked his hands into the pockets of his ratty jeans.
"I'm glad you think so, and I'm glad to see you," she said, motioning beside herself. Luka took the hint and approached her, stopping when he was beside her, feet just barely on the edge of the highest peak of the world-renowned structure. "I thought maybe it was too cheesy, but..."
"Not at all," Luka assured. "This is a very special view."
The landscape was indeed a special one; it symbolized human accomplishment in a very pronounced way, framed by bustling, paved roads and tall buildings and people with their eyes turned upwards, always looking to the sky, always looking to the next achievement. The tower on which they had taken up residence proved that easily enough. Maybe there was no particular purpose for the thing other than to rake up tourist dollars, but it stood for things that were more precious than the metals used to forge it. It was a stately salute to progress, a flag stretched heavenward with intuition and ingenuity engraved into it. But Luka was not looking into the distance to admire the city. His eyes were focused on Rosetta.
"How was your day?" he continued, more casually than Rosetta could have mustered.
"It was good," Rosetta answered truthfully. "Rachel asked me to help at the salon, but it wasn't a bother. I'm glad she did. She said I seem happier lately."
"Oh?" Luka articulated, sounding somewhat intrigued. "Well, you have become much more personable to me since our meeting in Vogogna," he teased, "but I had supposed that that was simply because we are no longer strangers. Still, I am glad to hear that you have found joy."
Rosetta shrugged. "Maybe joy was there all along," she challenged, giving him a meaningful look, "and I just needed someone to help me trust it."
"You mistrust happiness?"
"No!" was her immediate response, but, after a moment of consideration, she backpedaled a bit. "Sometimes. I don't know. Before, I felt that, if I let myself enjoy the little pleasures in life, I would be putting myself at risk, because then I was running the risk of having whatever I liked—whatever I loved—taken from me," Rosetta explained. "I think I've realized that sometimes there are risks worth taking, so long as I don't have to take them alone."
"I could not have said it better myself," Luka praised.
Rosetta was not sure how to put her gratitude into words, so she let an appreciative smile shared between the two of them suffice. She had grown quite fond of Luka's smile over the past few weeks, the way that it always started out small, perhaps even reserved, but quickly blossomed into something broader and brighter, as if his happiness were spilling over any sort of resolve he had, and he could not hold it in or lessen its impact on his expression. The corners of his eyes would crinkle, his eyebrows would rise upward as if he were surprised at every little lovely thing in the world, and a dimple would form in his left cheek.
"And how is the bird in your care? What did you name her, again?" Luka inquired lightheartedly.
"She's doing well, I think," Rosetta reported. "I named her Ray." Rosetta had chosen the name because the bird's coloration was like a ray of sunlight, and the mathematical interpretation of a ray went in only one direction, just as Ray's condition was only going to improve. It was a hallmark of positivity, and the small creature seemed to approve of the name, trilling sweetly whenever she heard it spoken. "Anyway," Rosetta hoped to change the subject, "how was your day, Luka?"
The authenticity of his smile faded in an instant, leaving a clearly-feigned half-grin. It was like watching the flame of a candle be snuffed out and then being expected to pretend that the smoky scent that followed its extinguishment was just as bright. "Oh, it was fine, Fiore," he said.
Rosetta frowned. She recognized the look on his face. It matched the one he wore when speaking of nights out with friends, or what his home was like, or why he could not exchange e-mail addresses with her. At first she had excused it as awkwardness or simple disgruntlement for talking about himself. But now she knew him well enough to know that was not the case. "Are you lying?" she asked, a twinge of what felt like anger but sounded like fear making her voice quiver.
Luka opened his mouth, initially about to deny it, but then closed it. Rosetta's stomach sank. "I am sorry," he said, chewing on his lower lip. His brows were furrowed with discomfort. "I did not want you to worry."
"Worry about what?" she demanded. Luka took a halting step back. His eyes searched hers, and they were full of apologies.
"Me," he admitted. Shame was contorting his form now; he seemed to want to be as small as possible, and his gaze fell from being locked with hers to the ground, yanked downward like a cinderblock to the bottom of the ocean. "My house is being destroyed," he admitted at last.
Rosetta was taken aback. "What? The one that your father built? The one that you live in now?"
"Sì, my father built it." For a moment, his gaze shifted to the edge of the platform that they were standing on, and he looked sorely tempted to jump, even though doing so would solve nothing. His silver cord would just act as a lifeline and yank him back to his body.
Rosetta felt sorrow springing up inside of her. She was not sure she wanted to hear what was coming next.
"But it is not mine, Rosetta. I have not lived there for a long time." He paused. Rosetta felt sick to her stomach. "I have not lived anywhere for a long time. I am sorry, Fiore. I always meant to tell you, but I was afraid."
"Afraid!" Rosetta scoffed back. She hated being lied to more than almost anything else. "Of what?"
"Afraid that you would not care for me if you knew that I was a poor boy with nothing to my name except the shirt on my back!"
The words came like an eruption from within him, and the eerie silence that followed them, like the somber sound of death after a roaring battle, chilled Rosetta to the core.
"As a soul, I am no poorer than the next fellow, it is true." He went on when Rosetta did not speak (she was too stunned to). "But as a man? Rosetta, I am nothing."
"That's not true," she argued meekly.
"It is," he insisted. "I have nothing. When disease took my parents, I was left with very little, and I could not afford to pay the bills that were piling up. Every day when I rose, I would wake up hungry and try to scrape together something, anything, just to keep that forsaken house I loved so much." Luka took a shaky breath. "It was all for naught in the end. I had to sell the land before I starved to death. Now I wake up, still hungry, and sore from the feeling of the ground pressing into my back."
Homeless. Nothing. Hungry. The words churned through Rosetta's head in a muddled whirlpool of confusion and heartache. "Luka..." His cognac eyes were red and shining with tears of disgrace.
/> "I did not want you to think of me as pathetic. As a nobody," he spat, sounding disgusted with himself. "But that is what I am. I have no shelter, no friends, and nobody in Vogogna will give me work."
A strangled sound of pain made it halfway up Rosetta's throat before she swallowed it in a rueful attempt to stomach what she was hearing. "Luka," she said his name again. She said it like it was precious, like it was priceless, like it had matchless worth, because it was and it did. "When I met you, I didn't want you to think of me as scared or weak or indecisive, so I lied to you. I pretended that I was angry, that I couldn't care less about whether I saw you again or not, because I didn't know what else to do. But the next time we met—in the snow, under the gazebo—I realized that I didn't have to worry anymore. I didn't want to worry anymore. I sensed something that day, sensed that I wasn't the only one hiding pieces of myself that I thought were unlovable. And I realized that people are all just piles of sand trying to hold themselves together while the wind tries to blow them apart." Luka dared to look up, to look at her face again. "I hate that you lied to me," she said, ensuring that he had no illusions regarding where she stood on the issue of falsity, "But don't think I hate you. I don't blame you for trying to hold onto something that you thought was special, even if you did it the wrong way."
"I wanted to tell you," Luka choked out. "I just did not want to lose..."
Rosetta wondered what word he had intended to say before he trailed off. You? Us? Whatever it is that we feel for each other? She was not in the mood to ask aloud.
"There's something else," he said, almost numbly. When Rosetta's eyes widened with concern, he quickly babbled, "Nothing bad, I swear it! Just something I would like to tell you. But...the time is not right."
Rosetta was dumbfounded. "What does that mean?"
"You need time to think, Fiore," Luka said woefully. The nickname sounded almost like a question, as if he were asking if she would still allow him to call her the name he had used when she had been under the impression that he was someone else. "I can see it in your eyes. I do not want to pressure you into anything, and I do not want you to do anything out of pity for me. You are a person of reason, Rosetta, and I would be a monster to rob you of that."
Her first instinct was to fight him on the matter, to order that he tell her whatever was lingering in his mind then and there, but she resisted. He had a point. It was a lot to take in. Maybe too much. "Okay," she said with feigned compliance. "I'll think about it, then. If that's what you want."
"Thank you," he bowed his head cordially. "Meet me in two days. I will be waiting for you."
"All right," Rosetta said stiffly. She wished her heart was not so soft toward him. Every word he said was pained and gave away that he was trying very hard not to burst with cries for forgiveness, and each syllable that left his mouth felt like a punch to the gut. "See you then."
"Farewell, Fiore," Luka waved weakly to send her off.
Rosetta felt the telltale tug of the silver cord that was perpetually tied to her body waiting for her back home and regretfully allowed it to snatch her away.
Her eyes flew open, and she tried to take comfort in the familiarity of the room around her—the haphazardness of nail polish bottles and makeup containers scattered over the tables and dressers that were pressed up against the wall, the tiny cactus in a pot that she had bought because it was the only plant she trusted herself to care for adequately, even the unusual musty scent that was not only an annoyance, but also was what she associated with home. No comfort came, however. Her hands were shaking, her heart was twisting within her chest, and her lungs were heaving under the weight of what she had just learned.
Where was Luka now? Had he returned to his body, too? Rosetta cringed at the thought. She imagined his once-lifeless form curled unglamorously on the ground, slowly twitching to life and trying to banish the chill of nighttime with uncontrollable shivers. Or, perhaps even worse, was he still standing at the peak of the Eiffel Tower, staring out at nothing in particular atop the mountain of metal, contemptuously debating whether he should even return to the accursed form that hungered, thirsted, shivered, and scarred, when he could search for beauty as an untouchable being? Was he waiting for her to return, hoping and praying that he would have an excuse not to go back for a few more seconds?
It occurred to her that she probably should have wondered much earlier why Luka dabbled in the art of astral projection in the first place. She guessed that she had just assumed it was for the thrill of adventure, the exhilarating feeling of escape from a life of bland normalcy, the challenge of experiencing something new every time and, for once, just letting go. But that was no more than a mere projection of her own reasoning stamped onto her perception of Luka. If he traveled for escape, it was for a different reason. It was not to run from emptiness or dissatisfaction or entrapment in a life that had grown too stale. It was to run from the harsh reality that there was no one to turn to, no home to conceal the tears life would inevitably squeeze from his eyes, nothing but himself, his harp, and his songs.
His reasons did not invalidate hers, nor did his struggles, but it was jarring to realize that even seeing someone soul-to-soul was not enough for her to claim to know that person. Part of her wanted to hate him, to mistrust him forever so she could abandon him and refuse to return in two days. She did not know why, but she guessed that hate was easier than love. But love would not let itself be lost to hate, because she understood. His motives matched an unofficial creed she had once followed. To hide suffering was a strange way of saying "I love you" sometimes. A broken, sad, misguided way, but a way nonetheless.
Rosetta's throat tightened as she swiped the moisture that was collecting in the corners of her eyes. It's not fair! her mind cried. I should have just left things where they were, let my dreams be nothing more than figments of my imagination. I should not have fallen in love with him! I should have just...
Her thoughts went silent as she remembered the song she had heard him singing when she had first laid eyes on him. She remembered how enthralled she had been and how much she had wanted to hear more. And that was when she realized she was doomed from the start. Doomed by his shaggy, mane-like hair, doomed by the exquisite nature of his eyes, doomed by the dimple in his cheek, doomed by the nature of his jawline that mimicked cut glass, doomed by falling in love with the way he smiled and the words he spoke and his very soul. She had always felt vulnerable around him. Perhaps that was why she had been so apprehensive at the start, but he had never taken advantage of it. Because he had fallen for her the same way. Some people claimed they were unable to tell if someone was in love with them, but Rosetta had no such trouble. She could see it in the way he looked at her, the tone he used with her, the way he only flushed at her compliments, and, most of all, the way he called her Fiore. She knew by now that it meant "flower," just as Luka's father had called his dearest one a sunflower. She knew by the way he said it with such hesitance after he had poured out all the shameful parts of himself, as if asking permission to love her still, because he granted her every right to detest his love and to detest him for feeling it. But she did not.
The right love did not turn its face away at the sight of suffering and sorrow. It did not abandon when old sores began to bleed. The right love was there in the face of agony and difficulty and utter disgrace. The right love would not let Luka hate himself for what was indeed a mistake, but a forgivable one. Rosetta sighed and turned onto her side, settling in for a sleepless night as thoughts of Luka and love and what on earth she could say to make him believe that he was not worthless, not to her and not to the world, not even to the universe in all its vastness and complexity. What could she say?
She knew what to say.
It was now simply a matter of whether or not she could bring herself to say it, and whether the words that were lingering like potential kisses in his lips matched the ones that now lined her heart like lace lining a pretty dress collar.
Every time Rosett
a closed her eyes, she saw only Luka's face. Every time the wind, veiled in the night like a dark hero concealed by a cape, died down, she heard nothing but his voice. Even her thoughts seemed to have matched tempo with his, pirouetting with beauty and finesse as they spun tales of romance and days that were full of sunshine and happiness—the kind one relishes in the moment, though ultimately takes it for granted until the sun dips below the horizon like a stone sinking to the depths of the sea, leaving in its wake a numbing sort of emptiness. She could not call those things daydreams, since they were spawned from the warm depths of sleep deprivation and a shadowy room, but they were dreams of some kind. Hidden dreams, perhaps. The sort that were meant to be kept quiet for reasons nobody knew. Everybody had one, and everybody had some primal, inexplicable urge to shout it from the rooftops and tell the whole world, but everybody was afraid that someone else would hear them, judge them, even fear them. Secrets were a fickle thing. They begged to be told, even in small ways—dropped hints, meaningful looks, passive aggressive sighs—but were always quick to remind that they were capable of spreading like an infection if the itch to let them out was ever scratched.
Why are we all so jaded? she wondered briefly. She was not guiltless of being cautious to a fault, to be sure, and because of that, the answer was abundantly clear to her. The world makes secrets of us all.
She wondered if it really had to be that way, and if there was a way to stop the vicious cycle of being wounded, letting the wound fester and remain entirely personal forever, and then, in an ironic twist, wounding someone else. It was the unremarkable, unglamorous, grotesque circle of pain that went around and around and around. Perhaps it stopped briefly for some, but then, someone was hurt. Someone got broken. Someone died. And thus, the cycle jolted to life once more like a patchwork monster made of bad decisions and tears that no one dared to shed.
What if I choose something different? she mused. Maybe granting trust doesn't just mean giving up boundaries and borders. Maybe it means something more. Maybe it means choosing love when indifference seems safer. Maybe it means choosing Luka. She did not mean just choosing to love him in spite of his flaws. She meant choosing to care about him, despite the fact that the hundreds of miles between them would usually dictate that they should have no more quintessence to one another than pebbles. She meant choosing to wear her heart on her sleeve, so long as he promised to do the same with his, so that their pulses could synchronize and they could face the idea of those heartbeats ceasing one day together.
Eventually, Rosetta's alarm clock sounded, announcing in a series robotic screams that it was time to rise up and face the day with a smile. Her hand landed on the snooze button with a loud smack, and she decided to declare this day a sick day. Normally, she would have tried to power through the day on a few energy drinks, but, after all, she had promised Rachel that she would try to take care of herself. Rosetta texted Lily and asked if she could copy Lily’s notes from the classes they attended together. Lily said yes, and she also asked if everything was okay. Rosetta told her it was. Lily asked if Rosetta was sure and told her she would personally buy all the chocolate bars from a local grocery store and bring them if she was not. Rosetta suspected Lily was wondering if she had become heartsick. To ease her worries, Rosetta promised that everything was okay, and that she just had not slept well the night before. "I should be better in a couple days," she had typed. She truly believed it, too.
The day passed, and Rosetta was drawn into a wonder-filled sense of immersion in the world around her. When she passed by furniture, she always felt the need to stretch a hand out and touch it, to feel its texture against her skin, to remind herself that this was what most would call reality. Lately, it was difficult for her to distinguish what felt more real to her: tangible things or intangible ones. She figured it really should be no contest, but that was not the case. Luka had shifted in her mind, somehow; all of the memories she had of him felt just a little more solid, as if they were a breath away from being just as palpable as the ones she had lived in the light, when she had her body and her responsibilities to shut her fantasies away.
It was when Rosetta was curled up in the living room under a warm, fleece, blue blanket that she noticed a flutter of wings from the bird cage, much stronger than ever before. Without really taking much time to consider what might be the cause, Rosetta cast off the blanket, letting it fall in a crumpled heap to the ground, and quickly walked over the living room floor, which felt uncomfortably cool on her bare feet. When she peered into the cage, Ray gave a chipper twit in salutation. The little golden bird was perched atop the highest faux-branch in her cage, and it abruptly dawned on Rosetta that she must have flown up there.
"Aww, are you feeling better?" she cooed, slipping one of her slender fingers between the bars of the cage for the bird to nuzzle up against. The tiny thing had never really been afraid of her, and now it trusted her without a second thought, always eager to chirp and trill at her whenever she looked particularly down. If Rosetta was honest, she had grown quite fond of Ray and was half-disappointed to see that she seemed to have healed. The bird hopped down and pecked at the doorway of the wire cage that served as its captivity, undoubtedly fixated on getting out and flying free once again. Rosetta could not blame her in the slightest. With the ability to fly, it was hard to believe that Ray would ever bother to land and to concern herself with the coarse roughness of the earth. The sky was so much sleeker, brighter, and softer, full of clouds and endless potential. Rosetta wondered if Ray dreamed of the sky, and, for a brief moment, was reminded of herself.
Just a few months ago Rosetta never would have allowed herself to prance around the astral plane, sharing every night with a stranger whom she wanted, with every fiber of her being, not to be a stranger anymore. The idea of the open sky would have frightened her as much as it would have enticed her with so many options, and so many wonderful things to see and do. How could she decide? And how could she be certain she would not get a broken wing, just like Ray had, and crash unceremoniously to some nameless, horrible level of depravity, in danger of never flying again? Surely a narrow field of options was better, because it was safer.
Now things were different. Now she had had a taste of the sky—the sweetness of the stratosphere burning in her lungs, boiling in her blood, making her crave the sorts of things she once would have deemed dangerous, unnecessary, and even foolish. Now she saw those things for what they really were—options. They were choices, nothing more and nothing less, but refusing to make them was perhaps more cowardly than outright refusing. Now, she could feel the perpetual hesitance in her personality fading, making way for a self-assuredness with which she was unfamiliar but still adored. Now she had danced in the clouds, had stood in the snow where footprints that should have been but never were, had strolled through trees with budding cherry blossoms as grandiose as cathedral decorations, had fallen for the soul of a man she had never touched and still knew exponentially better than most people would ever know anyone else.
Now she was different.
She still wanted the security of her life, to be sure. She wanted her engineering degree, her little shop that was so uncomfortably squashed into the strip mall, the sister and friend who made her confident enough to drag herself out of bed each day. But now she was willing to try other things, too. She was willing to let fireworks explode overhead instead of covering her ears at the loud noises they caused, willing to let the flames of excitement roar upward within her more than the meager candle of happiness she had dully maintained for so many years, willing to let love scorch her heart with exhilaration, willing to let herself love the sunrise again, because she had watched it one fateful morning with someone just as vibrant and colorful as the morning mosaic at her side.
"Just one more day, all right?" Rosetta decided kindly, pulling her finger from within the cage and smiling down at Ray. "I just want to make sure you're ready. Then I won't stop you. Tomorrow, you can fly again." And, tomorrow night, I'll fly,
too. Fearlessly. For the first time in my life, I'm going to soar, she thought.