Il Ragazzo Bello

Some memories don't leave.

They stain you quiet, like the sun on the back of your hand, like basil crushed between your fingers. They become part of you-not like a scar, but like a scent you can't wash off.

I didn't know, back then, that a single summer could undo the version of myself I thought I had to be. But he walked into my garden with that careful mouth and those serious eyes, and suddenly nothing was still.

Not even me.

--

"I figured it out," I said.

He looked up from the sketchbook in his lap. "Figured what out?"

"Why they call you that."

He blinked slowly, like he'd forgotten the world beyond our small corner even existed.

"Il ragazzo bello," I said. "That's you, isn't it?"

He was quiet for a moment. Then he smiled-soft, like he didn't want to ruin the air between us.

"That's just something people say," he murmured, eyes still half on the page. "They don't know me."

"But they call you that."

He tore a piece of paper from the sketchbook-something half-drawn, incomplete-and crumpled it absently between his fingers.

"I'm not il ragazzo bello," he said.

I raised an eyebrow. "You're really going to argue that?"

He looked at me then, really looked, and there was something slower in his voice when he said,

"Tu sei il mio ragazzo bello."

I stared at him. The words were soft, almost whispered. Familiar, but still out of reach.

"What did you say?"

He didn't answer.

He just smiled again-barefoot, wine-drowsy, eyes too bright in the dark.

"You wouldn't understand," he said.

And the strange thing was that he sounded completely okay with that.