*****
Finding Luka was much easier this time than it previously had been. She could concentrate her mind on the cadence of his voice, the lyrical rhythm of his words, even the outline of his form silhouetted by her limited perception and inability to do anything but see and hear him. It was like tracing the outline of a shadow on the wall in order to see it forever, even when the sun goes down and the lights go off permanently.
When the darkness faded and she could see again, Rosetta realized that she had been transported to a winter wonderland. If it had been tangible to her, she might have groaned about how springtime had just barely managed to rid her of snow, but to see it without having to worry about it soaking her clothes or giving her frostbite gave it a new, unprecedented, romantically magical quality. Snowflakes drifted lazily down through the air; they would have come to rest in her hair and eyelashes if she had really been standing there. It was strange to stand in the snow and leave no footprints, to hear the whistle of winter wind but fail to feel the familiar chill that it typically accommodated. A blanket of snow hugged the trees and the earth, weighing down the thick evergreen branches that surrounded her on all sides. The soft, golden hue of sunset glimmered through what little patches of the horizon she could make out through the web of tree branches and snow.
Directly ahead of her, just a few meters from where she was standing, a gazebo that was the same rich, cedar shade as the tree trunks around her, rose up from the ground. Icicles hung precariously from its roof, twinkling like resplendent Christmas lights. It was the only sign of human involvement to be seen, but it was not invasive like city skylines and highways that sliced through the country side. It was much gentler, as if it had been made with the earth in mind, as if by some strange magic, it had been there forever, and no one could say whether it was built onto the land or if the land grew around it.
And, of course, there was Luka. He stood at the center of the gazebo with a smile on his lips and excitement in his eyes. Rosetta was appropriately reminded of a child on Christmas morning, full of vigor and belief and sugary dreams. "Ciao, Fiore, I am so glad you came," he greeted her with a wave of his hand. She tentatively waved back, trying to keep the intense euphoria the place instigated within her contained. "You have a lovely smile," he complimented as she slowly approached him. "Do you like the place I chose for us?"
"Thanks," she brushed it off like she would have swept snowflakes from a winter coat, but, just like snowflakes, the remnants of flattery clung to the fabric of her emotions. "I do, actually. It's lovely, Luka," As she stood before him, his eyes locked onto hers, drawing her in. She allowed herself to get lost in the shining, gem-like irises until she remembered Lily's advice. Just don't fall in love with him, she quoted. You don't have to. You don't want to. Right?
Rosetta decided, after a moment of contemplation, that it would be best not to think about her response to that question too deeply at that particular moment. Her heart was trapped between reason and rhythm, sense and star stuff. It was oscillating between keeping what she had totally safe and yearning to stretch out a hand and grapple for something brighter, something shinier, something entirely fanciful and luxurious.
"There is no need to thank an honest messenger," Luka bowed dramatically, "but I am grateful for your appreciation." He looked elated when Rosetta laughed. "Ah, has my wit won you over? That is wonderful news!"
"Don't get any ideas," Rosetta said, crossing her arms over her chest and angling herself slightly away from him. In the midst of her jaded posture, she did not make an effort to come across as exponentially uninviting. She decided to let a smile linger on her lips for a few seconds longer. "This isn't a date or anything, you know. I just thought...we might make good friends," she finished. In her opinion, her indifference was convincing.
"You are correct on both counts, Fiore," Luka avowed. "This is not technically a dream. This place is just as real as the rooms in which our bodies lie—just as silent, just as undisturbed, just as memorialized to the souls that live and visit here in the flesh. It is a great mystery how we can stand on the cusp of livelihood and eternal slumber and yet speak. A mystery, certainly, but it is no dream. And I will be the first to agree that we would make a lovely pair of..." His words slowed, like a ritardando at the end of a musical composition, before he at last finished with, "friends. If such labels are necessary."
Rosetta raised a brow. "What do you mean?" she asked, filled with intrigue.
"Labels impose such unnecessary limits upon everything," he elaborated, and proceeded to gesture to the wintry paradise that hugged their gazebo tightly on all sides. "Is this land fake, or is it real? Perhaps both? I suppose it is real, but if the scenery is what we consider real, then what of us? Are we the illusione?"
Rosetta opened her mouth, prepared to rebuke the silliness of the notion that she might be less real than the space around her instead of the other way around, but closed it when she realized that what he was saying made a point that stole the wind from her chest and left her wondering why she had not considered it before.
"Friends? Lovers? Why trouble ourselves with such petty titles?" he questioned, circling around her and letting his philosophies sink into her mind. "I much prefer the term 'together'."
"But, without labels, where is order?" Rosetta countered. She had taken a few semesters of philosophy; Luka was not the only one who could debate the efficacy of societal normalcies. "People are always trying to figure themselves out, and labels are helpful." Rosetta herself was guilty of running around in search of adjectives to stuff into her pockets and save for when people asked about her. Sensible. Capable. Determined. Driven. But what if those words aren't what I am, she wondered, and they're just what I choose to be? There was a massive crevasse between innate intelligence and good grades that sprouted from all-nighters and energy drinks, to be sure. What if she was just grasping at labels that she thought should suit her? What if Luka was right, and it was all meaningless? Or, alternatively, did it give more meaning to the person she was to discard such specific ideals?
"I would argue that it is impossible to figure oneself out entirely," Luka rebutted. "We run around, always changing, always fickle, and claim that we can keep squeezing ourselves into the same little categories year after year. Labels are just our way of coping with a world that, in actuality, has none. They are a construct to save us the discomfort—or perhaps the beauty, but you must judge that for yourself—of letting everyone be exactly who they are."
Rosetta nodded thoughtfully. "That's a good point," she allowed.
Luka smiled. "Grazie," he thanked. "Yours was well-stated, too."
"Thanks."
"Now," Luka declared, walking to the waist-high wooden fence at the edge of the gazebo and gesturing for her to follow, presumably so that they could watch the last traces of brightness slip away in rivulets through the trees and let a nighttime slumber take over the icy forest, "as much as I would enjoy debating the flaws of our society and human nature with you, there are more important things to discuss."
A childlike smile graced her lips when Rosetta caught a flash of movement: a pure white rabbit was darting across the landscape at breakneck speed and paused for a moment to lock eyes with the pair of them. Its irises glittered like black marbles against the soft, pale backdrop. "Like what?" Rosetta whispered, hoping to leave the animal undisturbed. Sadly, even the soft noise startled the rabbit, and it quickly hopped out of sight.
"Come voi, Fiore!" he exclaimed. Rosetta gave him an exasperated glance; surely he had not forgotten that she did not understand more than the slightest bit of Italian. And he chuckled. "Like you," he repeated in her own language.
"Me?" Rosetta scoffed.
"Sì," he confirmed. "Like I told you when we last met, it is my intention to get to know you, if you'll allow me. And please, do not pass along the question by telling me that you are no one special. I reject the notion that someone who both looks like a dream and travels through the space between dreams and
consciousness can be anything but exceptional." Somehow, Luka always managed to wrap his compliments in glittering words and present them like diamond rings, or some other pretty, luxuriously expensive thing. "So, would you tell me something about yourself?"
"You just expressed your resentment for labels," Rosetta pointed out. "How am I supposed to—"
"Indeed, Fiore, do not use labels," he agreed, interrupting her. "Tell me of the real you. What you do, where you go, what life means to you."
"The real me," Rosetta repeated. Luka looked over at her and nodded. Their faces were close right now; if they had been there in the flesh, their noses might have brushed together. Rosetta marveled for an instant at how they were breathing, but not the air that they could see. No steam floated up when they spoke, no visible remnants of the feverish intensity of life in frozen, chilly air. They were taking their breaths countless miles away, constant miles apart, and yet, there they stood, leaning over the edge of a gazebo, speaking to one another. "The real me...goes to college to study engineering and runs her own business on the weekends," she began slowly. At first, thinking of things to say was difficult, but soon, they were tumbling out, a plethora of one-sentence stories desiring to sum herself up, one after another. "The real me drinks coffee at night because it calms me down, for one reason or another. The real me loves fantasy novels because they make stories and people and life so simple, so easy to understand. There's the good, there's the bad, and both have motives to match the themes of light and darkness." Life was not the same, she had found. Life was full of gray, and full of blank time between the epic moments of grandiose emotions and worthy deeds that fiction chose to focus on. "The real me likes the little cafe on the corner of the street way more than the pub my best friend always tries to take me out to, because it's quieter. The real me is...normal. I don't know what else you want me to say."
"Rosetta," Luka assured, "the only normal people in this world are those who outright choose to be so. To me, it sounds like you have chosen otherwise. You sound wonderful." He paused. Then he amended the statement. "You are wonderful."
"What makes you say that?" Rosetta tried to laugh the words off, tried to make them not matter, tried with every fiber of her being to take Luka's compliments in the same brusque way that Lily took them from the many eager souls lining up in front of the door of her heart, but she just could not. Maybe it was because they were speaking in the realm of souls and everything was inevitably a poem or a song or a metaphor, something cryptic and enticing. Rosetta was not sure.
"Because," Luka answered, "I am looking at your soul, and it is beautiful."
A gentle silence settled around them, much like the snowflakes around them slowly fell to earth, all photogenically blanketed together in soft hills and slight depressions, following the surface of the earth. "Why do you think we can see each other?" Rosetta asked after what might have been a minute or a lifetime. She did not know and did not care to. For all it mattered, the world could have been passing the two of them by in those seconds. She did not want to leave. She did not want to run. Her desire was to stay close to him forever and let his saccharine, satiny words sound like church bells in the crisp, clean air. Every time he spoke, Rosetta was reminded of a small, rectangular music box that she had listened to as a child. His words came in a melodious tempo, and each time they faded out, she wanted to wind the box up again and again and again until it was midnight, and the music was lost in the songs of the stars, intermingled to the point where they could never again be separated.
"I do not know," he said, "and for your sake, I will not say destiny." Rosetta recognized the expression on his face as playful, and if she had been able, she might have nudged him in the arm in halfhearted chastisement. "I think that we might just be drawn to one another. That could explain how we met in the first place, could it not?"
Rosetta thought back to that day—the flower petals, the lake that mirrored the dainty perfection of the land around it, Luka's voice, and how compelled she had been to chase after it, like a butterfly flitting upon some tiny breath of wind that no one else could feel. "I suppose it could," she said doubtfully.
"I am glad of it, whatever the reason may be," Luka mentioned. "It would be much more…what is it you say in English? Awkward? …to compliment you as a mist."
She laughed. "So, you've seen them, too?"
Luka nodded.
"Ooh, I saw one the other day with a bright blue streak down the middle. I'm thinking of getting my particles done that way soon," she joked, giving her hair a preppy flip.
Luka laughed, too. "The flower has a sense of humor! This is good. Happiness suits your face much better than mistrust."
"Hey, you can hardly blame me for last time; I barely knew you," she defended, nowhere close to apologizing for being concerned for her own well-being, especially when it came to emotions, things that were so frail and brittle that they bent and snapped even at the smallest pressure sometimes. "I didn't know what to think. I was just being cautious. I still don't know how I feel about some knight in shining armor chasing after me in an attempt to 'break down my walls'." It was partially a joke, but, admittedly, there was a warning tone accompanying her words.
"Oh, rightfully so," Luka was quick to encourage. "That came out wrong. I did not mean it as an attack on you, Fiore. I simply mean…well…you have a lovely smile. It shines, but not harshly, like the sun burning golden marks onto the surface of the sea. It is gentle, come la luce della luna." He stopped for a moment, seeming to consider whether or not to go on, and then said, "Please do not misunderstand my intentions. I have no interest in breaking anything that is yours, and I would never be so invasive to shatter your sense of caution. I merely hope to prove that you do not need to use such caution with me."
"Oh, okay," Rosetta gave him an understanding smile that was more genuine than any she had granted him before. "Thank you. Your voice is that way, too. It's brilliant, but in a subtle way, like pastel colors."
Just like the last time she had paid him a compliment, Luka seemed to curl into himself and appear to be inherently bashful. "G-Grazie, il mio amica," he stammered. Rosetta noted that he seemed to revert into flustered Italian when he was embarrassed. It was quite endearing.
"I mean it," she affirmed. "Where did you learn to sing?"
Luka dipped his head and smiled to himself. "Learn? That is a difficult question to answer, you must understand. Singing...it has always been a part of my life. My very earliest memories are of my mother and father singing together at my bedside. Whenever I was sick, they would sing for as long as it took to get me to sleep—hymns, lullabies, love songs, they knew them all." The bittersweet look of nostalgia was written all over his face. Rosetta recognized it because she had seen it so many times in the mirror on tougher days. "They taught me what I know. Every breath that I take and release as a song...I attribute it to them."
"That's beautiful," Rosetta whispered. She could tell by the look in his eyes—like he was staring at fractured faces in a shattered mirror—that the people who had given him his voice, his life, and his upbringing were no longer with him. She understood. The symbols of loss and solemn remembrance littered both of their bodies, both of their souls, like matching tattoos.
"It is a way of living, I suppose."
Rosetta knew without asking that he did not just mean a lifestyle filled with light and song in order to banish the darkness. He meant that sometimes songs and joy and music were just as black and unappealing as the rest of the world, but out of what might have been habit, addiction, or pure, raw instinct, he still clung to them.
"E tu, Fiore? Have your parents taught you something that has withstood the test of time?"
The quick, brisk change in conversation was a strategy that Rosetta knew all too well. As open and easygoing as Luka seemed on the surface, she could see the jaded, wary boy lying in wait underneath. All at once, as much as Rosetta was still not fully convinced that she should fork her trust into Luka's safekeeping,
she found herself longing to be someone that he could rely on. He probably already has someone, she thought in retribution. Someone to rely on...to count on...
Why was she unsure about that? Why were her thoughts so unconvincing? Why did she suddenly notice the slight slouch in his shoulders, as if he were bearing some invisible burden at all times? Why could she suddenly see past the veil of happiness that everyone wore to cover their skin and sadness, and why was she suddenly choking up at the forlorn, helpless glimmer of hope in his eyes and the devastation written on him like tales of tragedy etched onto tombstones?
Rosetta became painfully aware that she was staring, or perhaps prying was a better word, into his eyes, searching him for answers that, deep down, she was afraid she might already know. And to make matters worse, he was staring back, searching her in the same way. Feeling simultaneously enlightened and as though she had just been inspected without her knowledge, Rosetta glanced away, tugging at a spring-like strand of her hair. She had never looked at anyone like that before, and no one had ever looked at her like that before. It was as if she had seen all of him, and he had seen all of her, and yet both of them were still standing there. He was not running from the turmoil and turbulence of her in distress. She was not bolting from his vulnerabilities and scars. They had seen each other, looked one another right into the eyes, examined one another's souls, and the darker parts hidden deep inside were no longer undiscovered.
"So," she tried to go on casually, "I told you about the real me. Would you return the favor?
"You want to know about me?" Luka laughed, disbelief coloring his words. When Rosetta nodded and locked eyes with him once again, he smiled shyly and ran a hand through his locks of thick brown hair. "Well, all right. I grew up in a house on the riverbank—the shore of the river we last spoke over, actually," he obliged. "I love the color yellow, because my mother used to tell me that all the yellow flowers grew from drops of sunlight that fell to earth."
"That sounds like something my mother would say," Rosetta put in as the corners of her mouth turned upward.
"My father would pick them and tuck them behind her ears, because his nickname for her was Girasole. It means 'sunflower'," he reminisced fondly. "There truly is not much to say of myself, if I am entirely honest. The intricacies of my life are rather dull. I eat, I sleep, I sing, and I play my harp. How compelling, eh?"
"It is!" Rosetta exclaimed. "The harp is such a beautiful instrument. I was going to play it once; my mother was going to teach me, but then..." She sharply sucked in a breath as if she had been punched in the stomach. "She never did," she finished uncomfortably, shuffling uneasily on her feet.
Luka nodded empathetically. "I'm sorry to hear that, Fiore," he offered. His words were a meager consolation for how much grief still thrived in Rosetta's heart at the mere mention of the past, but she did appreciate that it was all he could give, and he offered his kindness as freely as the sky offered a view of the stars. "If you'd like to talk about it sometime, I would be happy to listen. If not...perhaps I could attempt to amend that, and teach you to play one day?"
"I'd like that," Rosetta responded after a moment of contemplation.
"As would I."
A comfortable silence fell over them, and it grew so quiet that Rosetta wondered if the world had stopped and hushed just to stare at the pair of them, because what an odd and unexpected pair they were. Rosetta theorized that being with someone in the astral plane granted a whole new field of perception, because she could sense so much that it was almost overwhelming. Luka stood tall before her, cloaked by the regal skill of music and yet still veiled with insecurities and weariness. There were parts of him, and parts of his past, that Rosetta knew she was not quite invited to see yet, but she could sense their presence hanging heavily in the air, pressing just between his shoulder blades. Perhaps they were the things that made it so hard to take a breath between sobs. She wondered if he could sense hers, too—hesitance, wariness, weariness, all three of them lined with determination as heavy as iron—chained to her ankles, weighing her down, and tethering her to cynicism. She had once taken comfort in the safety they ensured, but now she wondered if comfortable tolerance was safety at all, or if it was simply pleasant imprisonment disguised by its stability.
"I should go," Rosetta said after a moment. She was suddenly acutely aware of how dark the landscape had become; the whitewashed world was quickly being painted with rich dark blues and blacks, and the moon was hanging low in the sky. The light from it made every illuminated snowflake glisten like a tiny diamond. "I need to get a little sleep, at least. College is even more of a struggle if you're sleep deprived."
"Ah, of course," Luka agreed. "I forgot that, for you, this is the middle of the night. For me, it is dawn. And yet, for the both of us, it is now just a few moments after dusk, when the world is yawning and the sun has just retired for the day. Strange, is it not?"
"It is," Rosetta granted, "but there's something beautiful about it."
"I could not agree more," Luka grinned. "Thank you for coming, Fiore. It has been lovely to spend this morning—evening or whatever it might be—with you."
"Likewise," she smiled, though she was not sure why. Maybe it was because she truly meant it, or because this Italian man, whose words tasted of honeysuckle and morning dew and whose voice was decorating those few fleeting moments of her lifetime with a cadence as gentle as a piano ballad, had grown on her in the small amount of time she had spent with him. It felt as though their timelines had intersected and become tightly interlocked in the short span they had dedicated to philosophy and flushed smiles and tender words brimming with beauty together, so much so they might never unravel again. So much so she did not want to leave and let those lines that measured the pain, the relief, the joy, the tears of their lives part ways. So much so she suspected she would never be the same.
If it were at all possible to look at someone's soul and not care for that person immensely, Rosetta had failed to do so. She stared at his humanity, the very spirit of his existence, and it was beautiful. Broken, sad, imperfect, and yet still beautiful, lovely, pleasant, and, on no account, entirely ruined. And he thought the same of hers. All at once, Rosetta knew what the right kind of love was: it was the kind that wrought as much insight as it did butterflies, the kind that let you love every piece of someone instead of just the pretty, unblemished bits, the kind that surged past physical thrills and security of heart because it was undeniable that your emotions could be shattered at any moment, but choosing to trust that the beloved would not allow such a thing to happen, the kind that saw past the appearance of skin and style of hair and choice of clothing and instead searched for the underlying complexity, uniqueness, and soulful nature that was exponentially more intimate, the kind that was a little bit scary but urged its victims to be brave, the kind that sprung from shared suffering, compassion, and a mutual understanding that, while the sensuous luxuries of love were much more of a risk than a need, that the leap of faith needed to chase such bedazzled notions should be taken together. Most vindictively of all, it was the kind she felt in that more than anything else for Luka Allegri. More than uncertainty and more than jaded caution. It was the sensation of being free to fly wherever the wind might take her, but still knowing there would always be someplace, someone, to welcome her home when the storms grew too chaotic and loneliness outperformed the intoxicating sense of adventure.
The right kind of love was not unexpected, unbridled, or explosive. It dawned in the minds of lovers slowly, like the crescendo of a beautiful aubade. The right kind of love was a choice, and a choice that needed to be made over and over until it was not just a habit, but as familiar as breathing, sleeping, and nostalgia. It was the opportunity to see someone time and time again, to see the flaws and the perfections, the shortcomings and the successes, the crookedness of one’s smile and the quiet, unassuming brilliance of the eyes, and to choose to put such things aside, to look at that person’s very essence and to think it b
eautiful.
"Luka," Rosetta said, speaking quickly in case the words changed their minds and decided that they were too shy to slip past her lips, "I'd like to see you tomorrow."
Luka's expression of joy was as bright and vast as a supernova. Without the slightest bit of hesitance, he agreed. Then he was gone, and Rosetta was standing where his footprints would have, could have, should have been and wondering if the ground would miss having them there. Maybe not. It was difficult to miss something that was never really there. Difficult, but by no means impossible.