‘Painter girl, I’ve got a surprise for you today,’ says Luca. We’re outside the officina, where almost every day for the past two weeks I’ve been meeting Luca during my afternoon break, unless he finishes early, in which case he waits for me outside the Balduccis’ front gate. Today we both have a day off. I trail behind him as he pulls up the roller door of the officina and leads me into the garage.
‘I thought this might make getting around a little easier for you,’ he says, lifting a cotton sheet off a vintage bicycle. A bunch of pink roses spills from the wicker basket at the front of the bike.
‘Oh my goodness! Really?’ I reach for the flowers and bring them up to my face. The floral scent mixes with the smell of grease and petrol as the soft petals tickle my nose.
A smile stretches across his face. ‘Yeah those, too.’ He laughs. ‘Hey, I thought we could go somewhere special today.’
‘You know, you said that yesterday. And the day before that,’ I tease, as my hands glide over the peach-coloured metal of my unexpected gift.
‘The Val d’Orcia. You up for a ride?’
‘Totally! Although I haven’t ridden a bike in years.’
‘Me either. Not this kind, anyway. Look at what you’re doing to me,’ he says.
Silvio pokes his head in and drops a woven basket at the door. ‘Have fun, amoretti!’ he calls, before darting back to the bar.
‘A picnic as well?’
‘Just trying to step it up, painter girl.’ He grabs the basket and places it in the boot of the car. Then he reaches for his bike and pauses before he lifts it onto the car’s rack. ‘You should blush like that more often. The colour suits you.’
He fixes our bikes onto the rack, and when he stops to wipe his brow, he catches me admiring him with a pensive gaze.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
‘You’re looking at me like that again.’
I raise my eyebrows. ‘Like what?’
‘Like you’re falling for me just as hard as I’m falling for you.’
I brush my hands over the loose strands of my hair as I try to find the right words.
‘It’s okay. You don’t need to say anything. Your eyes are doing all the talking, and they’re making things very clear.’ He opens the car door for me and waves his hand. ‘Signorina, once you’ve finished blushing, do let me know whether you’d like the roof open or closed,’ he says with a smile so radiant my heart starts pounding against my chest.
We venture through Chianti, past vineyards and sweeping hills that blur as we pass them by while the warm Tuscan sun works on giving us the kind of sun-kissed glow that stamps the memories of summer onto our skin. Here the landscape spans from south of Siena to Mount Amiata, and when it flattens out Luca parks the car on the side of the road and we ride our bikes through the scenic villages of our timeless surroundings. Eventually, we stop near a stream, parking our bikes and setting up a picnic spot under the shade of a leafy tree. After lunch, and a little too much prosecco, I flick off my shoes and sit on the bank of the stream, picking wildflowers, while the cool water tickles my feet. Luca lies beside me, looking completely relaxed as usual. He must be rubbing off on me, because I can’t help feeling the same way.
‘It’s like time stands still whenever I’m with you. I love not having to be preoccupied with time,’ I say, slipping my fingers through his.
‘You don’t have to be preoccupied with time, Mia,’ he replies.
I start to pick the petals off the tiny purple flower in my hands. He rolls over so he’s facing me and props himself up on his elbow. He lifts up his glasses and looks me in the eyes. ‘I don’t think you’re as scared of dying as you think you are.’
I keep picking at the flower until all that’s left is the stem. And then I start on another. Luca has an uncanny way of getting into my head. I sit up and try to wriggle away from him, not in the mood for this kind of confrontation.
‘Why did you come here, Mia?’
My muscles tense as I look away uncomfortably. I don’t want to answer him.
‘I don’t know,’ I say eventually with a sigh. I look up at the sky and watch as a cloud resembling a dolphin morphs into a hummingbird.
‘Why did you come here?’ he asks again, his tone firm.
‘I told you, I don’t know,’ I reply hotly, as I swallow past the enormous lump that’s formed in my throat.
‘Close your eyes.’ He takes my hand in his and places it on my chest. ‘I know that this is difficult for you.’
‘Then why can’t you just let it go?’
He leans in close and whispers, ‘Trust me,’ as his warm lips brush my ear. Gradually, my irritation fades and my body softens at his closeness. ‘I want you to see it for yourself.’
‘See what for myself?’ I ask, searching his eyes for answers.
‘That you’re not as broken as you think. It wouldn’t have been easy for you to come here on your own after everything you’ve been through. But you did.’
I take a deep breath and think back to how hard I had to fight to get here, how I left my mum and dad after everything I’d put them through.
‘There was no joy in my life, and I didn’t know how to find it again. I thought that by coming here I could show myself that I could learn how to not be so scared of dying. I just knew that I wanted to feel happy and fulfilled again. I felt like a completely different person after the cancer. I felt … really, really empty.’
‘Do you still feel that way?’
I shake my head. ‘No, I don’t. Since I got here, and met you and started painting again, I feel full. Fuller than I’ve ever felt before.’
‘What?’
‘You’re not broken, Mia. In all of this, you have a choice. You can choose to embrace the life you are creating for yourself now. Or you can continue to use that figure of ten per cent as the thing that torments you day and night. If you put off your happiness for the day you get a hundred per cent survival rate, you’ll never be truly free and happy.’
In many ways, Luca’s right. I have been gripping tightly to my past. ‘You make letting go of all that fear sound so easy.’
‘Mia, if you didn’t have to think about the ten per cent, what would you be doing? How would you be living your life?’
‘I’d learn to scuba dive. I’d study art and make new friends, and I wouldn’t be scared that I would start studying and not be able to finish. I’d share my work without worrying about whether other people would see the sadness in my strokes.’
‘What else?’
I bite my lip. ‘That’s it. What makes you think there’s something else?’
‘Because Stella told me you’re still having nightmares.’
‘Not as often as before.’
‘What’s scaring you?’
‘I really don’t want to talk about this anymore. Let’s just drop it.’
‘Why?’
I feel into that tender place for the words. ‘Because I don’t want to think about the fact that I could be responsible for hurting the people around me, Luca—the people who love me and care about me.’
‘That’s why it’s hard for you to let them in?’
‘I let you in! And to be perfectly honest with you, it petrifies me.’
‘You don’t need to worry about me. I’m not worried about you dying on me, Mia.’
I turn my body ever so slightly away from him. ‘But I am,’ I whisper, my eyes fighting back the tears. ‘I don’t want to hurt you. Six, twelve, eighteen months from now, when we are in so deep, I don’t want you to watch me die.’
He takes hold of my shoulders and waits until I look up at him and our eyes lock. ‘We are already so completely beyond deep.’ He takes my hands in his and moves in closer. ‘Listen to me, Mia. Nobody gets a guaranteed survival rate. Not me, not you, not anybody.’
‘Nobody,’ I repeat.
‘Come here.’ He pulls me into his arms. Leaning back against the tree so that I’m resting against him, he holds me in his arms, resting his head against mine, leaving me to contemplate things. Slowly, the truth seeps its way in. I’ve been spending all of this time focused on that one figure. Paralysed by it.
‘I don’t know what I expected. Maybe when they told me the figures, I wanted them to tell me it was all going to be okay. That there would be no chance of a recurrence. I wanted a guarantee. A guarantee to make me feel safe.’
‘They’re doctors, Mia. They don’t have crystal balls. If that’s what you were expecting, they’d never be able to tell you what you wanted to hear.’ He slips his fingers through mine.
‘How did you get to have such a beautiful mind?’ I lovingly touch his face and wrap my legs around his. Placing my lips over his, I kiss him with all the tenderness within me, and when we finally pull apart, I’m left panting.
‘Looks like you need to catch your breath, painter girl.’
‘It seems to be a side effect I’m experiencing since I met you.’
‘Not sorry.’ He laughs softly then, making me want to kiss him all over again.
‘Could we do it?’
‘Do what?’ he asks.
‘Go scuba diving sometime?’
‘Yeah, we should definitely do that someday.’ He guides me to the ground. He’s lying on top of me now and I wrap my arms around his neck, never wanting to let him go. I’m almost certain I’ve never felt so completely safe in my life.
‘Luca?’
‘Yes, bella Mia?’
‘Is this what the beginning of love looks like?’ I ask, losing myself in his eyes.
‘I’m not sure. But it’s definitely what it feels like.’
I anchor into my happy thoughts and lean into the feeling of blossoming love, where numbers mean nothing and life is every shade of absolutely wonderful.