Archive of Our Own

The car winds its way along the narrow, sun-bleached cliffs while a cheerful, catchy song in Italian plays over the radio's itinerant signal. Outside the open windows, the sea sprawls below in a blue so rich it’s almost hard to look at, the kind of blue Madeline has only seen in expensive perfume commercials and European films. Her eyelids are heavy with sleep—Helen did warn her about the jetlag—but the smell of salt and something slightly herbal from the plants growing on the sides of the road helps to activate her senses.

A plane, a taxi to the nearest train station, a train, a car. Madeline thinks this is all too much for some beach town in the Italian coast, and she’s pretty sure that Helen’s family can afford to rent or even buy a nice enough place in Rome or Florence or whatever place rich people believe is worth their time. But Helen promised her that she would love the place, that they would have a wonderful time in Italy, just the two of them. She had practically begged her to come along, and Madeline couldn't say no to that.

Helen has been quiet since the airport. She’s draped lazily in the passenger seat, sunglasses sliding down her nose, a silk scarf tied around her neck like Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. Her legs are propped up on the dash, something so impolite and nonchalant for Helen’s usually prim and proper demeanor that it makes Madeline understand one thing instantly: this is Helen’s home ground; Madeline is nothing more than a guest.

“I can’t believe your parents own a house here,” Madeline says, breaking the silence mostly to remind everyone else in the car that she’s there. She sits in the back, watching the sun play across Helen’s profile and over the waves.

Helen smiles without turning around.

“It’s not technically ours. It belonged to my grandfather, and all his children use it. We’re just lucky that none of my cousins wanted to come during these two weeks,” Helen says, shrugging like it’s not a big deal. Like it’s the most normal thing in the world.

Madeline hums and turns back toward the window, trying her best not to think about her grandfather, who had to choose every year between giving her a birthday present or a Christmas present because he couldn't afford both.

After what feels like an eternity, the driver pulls through a rusted gate and the tires crunch over gravel. The villa appears like straight out of a dream: hidden behind a row of trees, a little weathered but somehow grander because of it. Ivy climbing the walls in a way that feels studied, windows shuttered against the worst of the heat, and a terrace wrapped around the front like a balcony on a stage.

“This is it,” Helen says, stepping out into the blinding sun, smiling wider than Madeline has seen her do in a very long time.

Madeline opens the door and steps out of the car slowly, her legs stiff from the drive, her jeans suddenly too hot and too American. To be fair, she tried; she really did. After carefully studying all the fashion magazines she could get her hands on, she chose a tank top and vintage sunglasses she’d found in a thrift shop, convinced everything would read as effortlessly European. It doesn’t.

While Helen chats with the driver in a surprisingly convincing Italian accent, Madeline looks around her, a tight knot in her stomach making her feel like a stranger in this place. The front of the house alone is larger than she had imagined; the lush green lawn indicates that there is a team of gardeners who tend to it year-round, the lemon and orange trees bloom with bright colors, and the stone path is an invitation to enter the villa, which surely must be even more luxurious inside.

It's everything Madeline has ever dreamed of. But for some reason, now that she has it within her grasp, she feels further away from it than ever.

An arm slipping through hers pulls her out of her thoughts. When she turns her head, she finds Helen smiling from ear to ear, sunglasses perched on top of her head. Somewhere in the background, Madeline thinks she hears the sound of the gate closing, but with Helen in front of her, she finds it hard to pay attention to anything else.

“Shall we go inside?” Helen says. She sounds so excited and her eyes are so bright that Madeline can only nod, her tongue suddenly too heavy in her mouth.

The driver has gone ahead to take their luggage and leave it in their room, so Madeline and Helen follow him. As they cross the stone path, Helen recalls hundreds of anecdotes that happened around every corner—her dad and her uncles playing badminton in the garden, her cousin getting a bump on his head when a ripe lemon fell on him, something about stray cats sneaking onto the grounds from time to time to see if they can get the family to give them something to eat. Madeline just nods absentmindedly, ignoring the slow simmer of jealousy inside her.

Inside, the air is cool and fresh. The house smells like old wood and lavender water, and everything shines as if it had just been cleaned. Madeline pauses in the entryway, letting her eyes adjust. The ceilings are high, with a fan turning lazily overhead, and the furniture looks old and a little out of date, though Madeline recognizes some decorative objects that perfectly match Helen's mother's refined tastes.

“C’mon, Mad,” Helen calls from the stairs. “Our room is on the second floor. It’s the one with the balcony, you’ll love it.”

Madeline follows her silently, her footsteps echoing. The room is quite spacious, with two twin beds on either side, a small television and an armchair in one corner, and a bookcase next to what Madeline assumes is Helen's bed.

She remembers Helen mentioning that this was the room she shared with her brother most summers; the rest of her cousins also had their own rooms, but Helen suggested that they shared so they could spend more time together. Madeline doesn’t particularly mind, even if Helen snores sometimes.

Madeline drops her purse on the bed and steps out onto the narrow balcony. Below, she sees a garden overtaken with bougainvillea and fig trees. The sea is visible beyond, framed perfectly by the stone archway.

It doesn’t feel real. None of it does.

“What do you think?” Madeline hears Helen's voice over her shoulder. When she turns her head to look at her, she finds Helen standing in the middle of the balcony, arms crossed over her torso, a gentle, almost nostalgic smile on her face, her gaze lost on the horizon somewhere over the garden fence. “Do you like it?”

“Do you even realize how beautiful this is?”

Helen shrugs, taking a step closer to Madeline. Their shoulders are almost brushing.

“I guess. It’s never felt that special to me.”

“That’s because you grew up inside fucking Great Gatsby,” Madeline teases.

Helen laughs, a small, surprised sound, and she slaps Madeline’s arm weakly. “Shut up,” she says. She stares at Madeline for a second too long before saying, “The view is quite pretty, though.”

Madeline feels chill run down her spine, something impossible under the August sun. She bites the inside of her cheek and turns on her heel to walk back into the room, stepping inside carefully, like she’s afraid to break something.

She sits on the edge of the bed that once belonged to Helen's brother, hands in her lap, not quite sure what to do with herself. She can just picture Helen—a younger Helen, with glasses a tad too big for her face, cheeks covered in freckles revealed by the sun—waking up on the bed across her, her hair a little messy, eyes bright with excitement for another day of summer.

Helen steps back into the room, her silhouette outlined against the light coming through the glass door of the balcony.

There is a pause between them, one of those moments that stretch longer than it should. Madeline tilts her head, watching Helen move, graceful and quiet, like she belongs to this house in a way that can’t be taught.

“You ever bring anyone here?” Madeline asks, hating how small her voice sounds.

Helen glances over her shoulder.

“No. You’re the first.”

Madeline blinks. It’s not the answer she was expecting.

“Seriously?”

Helen nods. “Seriously.”

Something unspoken passes between them then, the air suddenly thicker and heavier. Madeline opens her mouth to say something—maybe a joke, maybe an insult on Helen’s social life or lack thereof—but stops herself.

Instead, she stands and turns away, towards an old radio in the corner of the room. She flicks it on, praying that it actually works so it won’t make her look like a fool, and waits. A burst of static, then a warm, crackling Italian ballad fills the room, echoing faintly through the tiled walls.

“I’m going to make this my entire personality for the next two weeks,” Madeline says, twirling once, then twice, arms raised. “Just a pretty American ingénue in Tuscany, a young movie star in the making.”

Helen leans in the doorway, pointedly rolling her eyes, but still watching her with a small smile. “There’s no need to romanticize everything, Mad. It’s just a house.”

But it isn’t just a house. Madeline knows it. Helen knows it too.

Later, they unpack their bags together. Helen asks Madeline if she is hungry and takes her to the kitchen, a huge room with sturdy wooden furniture and tiled walls, where they find dinner already prepared as if by magic.

Twilight greets them outside, and they sit barefoot on the terrace steps as the sky faded from peach to indigo, wine glasses in hand and half-eaten pasta dishes on the table.

Although it’s already getting late, the night air is warm and pleasant. The silence is also companionable, for once.

Madeline swirls the wine in her glass. “Why did you invite me to come here?”

Helen doesn’t answer right away.

When Madeline glances at her, it's almost as if she can see all the stars in the sky gathered together in the darkness of her wine glass, in the reflection of the light from her glasses, in her eyes when she looks back at Madeline.

“Because I wanted to be with you.”

Madeline doesn’t say anything. She just takes another sip of wine, letting the silence stretch long and thin between them.

In the distance, the cicadas keep singing.

The next day, the heat is already starting to press down by mid-morning, while Helen drives them to the center of town. A smile tugs at the corner of her lips when she catches a glimpse of Madeline staring out of the car window, eyes bright with wonder and lips parted in awe as the landscape appears before them—an intricate patchwork of colorful rooftops clinging to the hillside, cascading toward the sea and surrounded by lush green trees.

“Okay… You win. This is almost offensively charming,” Madeline says as Helen turns a corner, entering a small street with laundry lines strung between shuttered windows that wave in the breeze like flags.

Helen grins, feeling a pang of smug self-satisfaction. “I told you so.”

They park near the piazza and wander down narrow cobbled streets, drawn into shops with elderly women selling fresh fruit and vegetables from their gardens, handmade sandals and delicate linens. Helen greets and makes small talk with some of the sellers standing before their businesses, while Madeline wanders around with her eyes wide open, still unable to believe that this place is real. After a lively conversation with a woman in which Madeline only manages to catch Helen's parents' names amid a flurry of Italian, Helen decides to buy a beautifully handmade straw hat, tilting it on her head like something out of a Fellini film. Madeline watches her from across the stall, pretending not to stare, fingers ghosting over a dress she doesn’t need.

Helen drags her by the hand through town, reminiscing about her memories of summers spent there. They share a gelato—gianduia for Madeline, lemon for Helen—and sit on the edge of a fountain. Helen scoops a bite of hers and offers it across the space between them.

“Try it,” she says, her voice light.

Madeline leans forward without hesitation, lips brushing the spoon. Her eyes close, just briefly, and Helen feels something kick low in her chest. Her mouth is suddenly dry, but she blames it on the ice cream—her grandfather always used to say that eating ice cream made him thirsty.

“Hmm. Tart,” Madeline says, licking her lips. “Like you.”

Helen laughs, but the sound comes out a little shaky, a little high-pitched. “Is… Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

Madeline looks at Helen over the rim of her sunglasses before shrugging, turning her full attention to her ice cream. A drop of melted chocolate drips from the cone and down her fingers; Madeline brings her hand to her mouth and licks it before it falls to the ground, her tongue tracing her knuckles in a way that feels just this side of deliberate.

Helen looks away. Suddenly, not even the gelato can help with the way heat creeps up her neck to settle on her blushing cheeks.

“Take it however you want,” Madeline says.

For a while, the only sound is the distant clang of a church bell, the slosh of the fountain, and the loud beating of Helen’s heart against her eardrums.

Later, they duck into a sun-drenched trattoria for lunch, escaping the heat and slipping into the cool shade of the courtyard. Vines curl up the trellis overhead, and old, worn umbrellas protect the tables where locals and the occasional tourist are eating, sharing bottles of wine, and laughing. A melancholic ballad plays from a radio on a balcony somewhere above them as Helen and Madeline sit at a table, sheltered from the unforgiving midday sun.

The waiter appears after a couple of minutes, tall and olive-skinned, with a boyish smile and a practiced ease. He greets them in Italian, then switches to English with a wink when Helen responds in her best accent but Madeline’s eyebrows twist into a small, confused frown.

"Two beautiful signorine like you?” he says, his eyes staying a second too long on Helen. “I bring you the house wine. On me.”

Helen blushes as he reads the menu from his small and worn-out notepad.

“I’ll have the gnocchi,” she says, soft but certain.

“Excellent choice, bella,” the waiter says, his smile widening before he turns to Madeline, though his eyes keep flicking back to Helen. “And you?”

Helen doesn’t miss the way Madeline’s smile sharpens and her long fingers fidget over the checkered tablecloth. She’s quiet for a few seconds, staring at the waiter with something akin to anger behind her eyes.

She shifts uncomfortably on her seat. Of course, Madeline doesn’t like it when she isn't the center of attention. She always acts like this whenever a guy seems to be slightly more interested in Helen.

“I’ll have the same,” she says, ice cold.

The waiter's smile falters even so slightly, but he’s quick to recover. He gives Helen a wink and walks away with a theatrical bow that elicits a charmed giggle from Helen.

When he’s back into the restaurant, Madeline leans forward on her elbows.

“That was flirty.”

Helen shrugs, but she knows the tips of her ears are red. She knows Madeline has noticed, too.

“He was being polite.”

“He called you beautiful.”

Helen avoids her gaze. For some reason, she feels the need to make excuses. To apologize for receiving attention instead of Madeline. To apologize for the waiter seemingly liking her, even if it’s most likely a way to charm them into going back to the trattoria.

“Well, Mad,” Helen says, frustration bubbling up in her chest. “You’re always the one who flirts. Let me have this one.”

The air shifts between them, lightness slipping into something denser, something heavier that has nothing to do with the summer heat. Madeline forces a nonchalant laugh, shaking her head almost in disbelief.

“Why not?” Madeline says, leaning back into her chair with her arms crossed and an unreadable smirk on her lips. “One waiter in one tiny town. Sure. You can have that.”

Helen looks up, uncertain, and finds Madeline staring at her as if waiting for something. As if she wants to start a fight. And Helen isn't going to give her that satisfaction.

They don't speak for a while, the only sound filling the space between them is the murmur of conversations around them and the radio, now playing a bunch of lively, summery songs that match the mood of everyone around them—except, well, them.

The wine arrives, and then the gnocchi, rich and soft and heavy with butter and sage. When the waiter brings them their plates, he makes a point to smile at both of them, not just at Helen. It doesn’t seem to make either of them feel better.

Helen lazily pushes her food around, appetite suddenly dulled. The wine tastes like ashes in her mouth.

She hopes it tastes even worse for Madeline.

Later, they walk out of the trattoria to discover that the heat has only gotten worse, and the strange tension between them hasn’t eased in the slightest, not even after sharing some coffee-flavored granita that helped Helen to stop feeling like she’s been blushing all day.

They stand awkwardly under the small awning of the restaurant, an uncomfortable silence still hanging between them. Helen wipes the sweat from her hands on her skirt; Madeline wants to do the same, but she doesn't want to think too hard about whether she's sweating because of the heat or for some other reason.

“There's…” Helen begins, glancing at Madeline from under the brim of her hat. “There's a bookstore a couple of blocks away. I used to hang out there for hours because it’s the only place here with an aircon.”

Madeline is quiet for a few seconds, but soon her lips curve into a small smile. She can instantly see the tension lifting off Helen's shoulders, the way she exhales sharply as if she had been holding her breath for hours and only now remembered how to breathe. Madeline understands it—she feels the exact same way.

“Sure,” she says. “Sounds great.”

They walk through the town, trying to avoid the sun, until they reach the small bookstore on a narrow street lined with colorful facades. There is a bench with an umbrella outside, though it’s still too hot for anyone to sit there, and a tabby cat dozes by the door. It ignores Madeline and Helen as they enter the store.

Inside, the air is cool and dim, the shutters drawn to block out the worst of the sun. The floor is made of terracotta tiles, worn smooth by time, and a gentle breeze glides between the shelves until it reaches them. Both let out a sigh of relief when they feel the cool air around them. A bored-looking man sits reading behind the counter, but barely glances at them before returning his gaze to his book. Madeline and Helen take this as a sign that they can wander around as much as they want.

For a while, Helen browses the shelves, letting out little exclamations of excitement when she finds a book that she wants to read or some kind of edition that catches her eye. Madeline follows her silently; it's not that she doesn't enjoy literature—she might not be as passionate about it as Helen is, but she’s done her fair share of reading—but there's something that’s not letting her think straight. Something dark and unpleasant settled in an unreachable corner of her mind, something she knows very well.

As Helen leafs through a bilingual edition of the Divine Comedy, Madeline gently taps her on the shoulder.

“I'm craving another gelato,” she says with a rehearsed smile. Lying comes easy to her. It always has. Maybe that’s why she wants to become an actress. “I'm going to get one. Do you want anything?”

Helen looks at her with her eyebrows twisted in a frown. Her eyes move between Madeline and the book in her hands until she finally shakes her head.

“No, I'm fine,” she says. “I'll wait for you here, okay?”

Madeline nods and walks out of the bookstore. She makes her way slowly under the shade of the buildings, retracing her steps back to the trattoria. Luckily for her, it’s still open.

The waiter is still there, wiping down a table while he hums a song that sounds vaguely familiar under his breath. He doesn’t notice Madeline standing there until he looks up; he’s clearly surprised to see her, but he smiles nonetheless.

“You are back,” he says.

Madeline steps closer, lips curling into her most charming smirk. “Yeah. I think I left my sunglasses here.”

The waiter's smile twitches slightly, one of his eyebrows arching in amusement. He points to Madeline's head—her sunglasses are there, perfectly perched on her blonde hair. Madeline is well aware of it; she spent a good minute checking herself in a store window to make sure they swept back her hair in a natural but flattering way.

“Found them.”

Madeline lets out a fake gasp of surprise.

“Oh! How silly of me.”

The waiter shakes his head. “Does that trick usually work?”

“I don't know,” Madeline says, batting her eyelashes. “I'll tell you if you tell me how many times your trick has worked.”

“What trick?”

“Please. The wine, the compliments in Italian… I could see what you were trying to do from a mile away.”

His smile widens. He doesn't seem embarrassed, which only makes Madeline’s mood worsen. Who does this guy think he is?

“Did it work?” He asks. “Did she like me? Your… sister?”

Madeline has to take a deep breath to stop herself from gagging at the thought. Maybe he’s even more stupid than she originally believed.

“My friend,” she corrects. The word tastes bitter on her tongue. “I suppose you could say that, but…”

“But?”

He smiles, an interested twinkle in his eyes. Madeline moves a little closer to him, fiddling with the strap of his apron.

“I think she'd bore you to death. She's a bit… prudish,” Madeline says, pouting dramatically. He frowns slightly. Shit. Maybe he doesn't know that word. “I think you'd have a lot more fun with me.”

The waiter watches her with a small, amused smile. His eyes darken slightly as they move up and down Madeline's body.

“Really?”

“Really,” Madeline says, almost against his ear.

He lets out a laugh and shakes his head as he pulls the small notepad out of his pocket. He scribbles something down quickly while Madeline watches him in silence, waiting for him to do exactly what she came here for.

Madeline tilts her head. She remembers that Helen once told her that Italian men were naturally handsome and charismatic. Objectively, he’s handsome, and very obviously quite charming, but that’s probably due to working with the public and not some kind of genetic superiority. Overall, he's cute. Still, Madeline can't understand why Helen kept blushing while he pathetically flirted with her. She can’t also understand why just thinking about it makes her so angry.

“If you're fun,” he says, handing her a piece of paper torn from the notepad, “call me. I like fun.”

Madeline takes the paper, pleased. Scrawled on it in messy handwriting is a phone number and a name—Luciano.

“That makes two of us, Luciano,” Madeline says, waving the piece of paper in the small space between them. “Ciao.”

Luciano says something—goodbye, or another of his poor attempts at using his mother tongue to flirt—but Madeline is already out of the trattoria, smiling brightly in the afternoon sun. She has no reason to continue this conversation. She already has everything she needs: Luciano's attention. His interest. She’s certain that, by the time they are back in the villa tonight, Luciano will no longer remember there even was someone else with Madeline at the restaurant that day. She imagines him sitting next to the phone, nervously drumming his fingers on the table as he waits for a call that will never come.

Madeline chuckles softly. Poor guy.

She crumples the piece of paper in her fist as if she wants to crush it and throws it into the fountain.

The days slip by slowly, golden and sticky with heat. Helen and Madeline fall into a rhythm that’s almost easy, almost peaceful, if not for the current thrumming beneath it all. Something always seems about to explode between them, but it never does.

They wake late, the villa silent except for the distant hum of cicadas and the clink of dishes from the kitchen. There is always someone nearby—a gardener, a cook, a cat sneaking through the old fences—but they never enter Madeline and Helen's little bubble, that space reserved only for the two of them. In there, it almost feels as if they are the only two people in the world. The rest is just props. Helen drinks her coffee black, leaning against the marble counter barefoot, listening to her father’s old vinyl records until Madeline shows up ten minutes later in a swimsuit and a half-buttoned shirt that makes Helen look away, humming along whatever song is playing, sunglasses already in place.

They spend long afternoons stretched out on the beach just down the hill, towels overlapping on the sand. Madeline naps under the sun, her skin already a beautiful tan dusted with freckles, while Helen reads a dog-eared novel, highlighting passages for no reason at all other than to keep her hands and mind busy. She makes little sketches in the corners of some pages. Houses, waves, children making sandcastles. Madeline’s profile against the sea.

One evening, Helen drives them to town for the cinema all’aperto—an old open-air theater set up in the garden of a crumbling building, not far from the church. White plastic chairs are arranged in uneven rows, and a canvas screen flaps gently in the night summer breeze. They sit near the back, arms brushing against each other, and they both cry when the movie ends, even if it didn’t have any subtitles.

They talk about nothing and everything. A girl from high school they both used to hate. A director Madeline wants to work with. The future, spoken about in vague, uncommitted terms, but always with the implication that they’ll still be together by then.

Sometimes they bike into town on old bicycles Helen’s father keeps in the shed. Madeline always races ahead, hair wild in the wind, looking back to shout at Helen to pedal faster. They buy fresh vegetables and fruit from the market, stop for ice cream, linger under awnings when the sun starts to get too fierce. The routine is simple and borderline repetitive, but neither of them seems to get tired of it.

It doesn’t take long for Madeline to understand Helen’s deep love for this place. If she could, she’d call it home, too. The villa is almost like a third character in their relationship. They lie in different corners of it, sometimes in the same room but in entirely separate moods. Helen reads on the small balcony of their room while Madeline swims laps in the pool. Other times, they sit in the living room in silence, Helen journaling while Madeline flips through Helen’s grandmother’s fashion magazines, legs dangling off the arm of the couch.

And still, the air between them keeps thickening with unspoken tension.

There’s a weight to the glances they steal when they think the other isn’t looking, a strange burn in the way their hands almost brush when they pass each other the olive oil or a lighter. Sometimes they fight over nothing—which road to take home, whether a movie was good or not. It’s never too serious, never too loud, but the silences afterward last longer each time.

Helen’s friends arrive fashionably late, bringing expensive bottles of wine and pastries that look way too pretty to be eaten.

When Helen told her the day before that some friends were coming over for dinner, Madeline laughed, thinking she was joking. However, Helen's anxiety throughout the day quickly made her realize that this was no joke.

Madeline doesn’t know any of them, a mix of acquaintances and old family friends, the sort of people who always seem to exist in the Sharp’s orbit: well-dressed, well-mannered, and casually indifferent to the real value of money. All wealthy people cut from the same cloth, Madeline tells herself.

Helen introduces them with exaggerated, nervous enthusiasm: Marcello, tall and aristocratic-looking, who immediately launches into a story about his self-discovery journey in India. Anaïs, who lives in Paris and is already on her fifth cigarette by the time they sit down to eat. Salley, a childhood friend of Helen’s with a grating posh accent.

Madeline greets everyone with two kisses on the cheeks and her most charming smile, even though her palms are sweating. She feels both overdressed and underdressed; she borrowed one of Helen’s dresses, because her own clothes felt too cheap, too American, too much like she didn’t belong here. It’s almost like she’s a child, dressed in her mother’s grownup clothes. Everyone can tell she isn’t like them. At least they’re polite enough to not make any comments about it.

The table is set in the garden, under strings of lights with bulbs glowing against the dusk, casting the table in a soft, almost dreamy haze. The night air is filled with the smell of rosemary and the smoke from the cigarettes.

The food is amazing, and Madeline immediately notices that it’s much more elaborate than the dishes they find in the kitchen when it’s only the two of them. The ingredients are more expensive, the flavors richer. Madeline can barely taste it, her brain too busy trying to keep up with the conversations around her. For the first time in a very long time, she feels a step behind the whole night. Helen and her friends speak in a swirl of languages—mostly English, some Italian here and there, and occasionally French when Anaïs gets too drunk and can’t be bothered to translate. Madeline nods, and reaches for her wine to make sure she doesn’t have to actively participate in the conversation.

Madeline knows how to perform. She knows how to smile and ask questions and laugh at the right times. She learned that skill early in life, her mother made sure she did. But here, Madeline feels like this all might be too much, and she might not be enough.

When the alcohol kicks in and she finally tries to chime in with a story about a director who’d once told her she’d never become a true star because she was “doing too much”, the response is tepid at best.

“Well, sometimes you need thicker skin, right?” Salley says, tilting her head and looking at Madeline with something that feels humiliatingly close to pity.

Madeline opens her mouth, then closes it. She turns to Helen for support, but when she looks at her, she feels her blood freeze in her veins, because Helen is laughing at Salley’s comment like it’s the funniest thing in the world.

Halfway through dinner, Marcello pulls out a small tin from his pocket, his lips curling into a knowing grin. His friends cheer a little too loud, alcohol already running wild and hot though their bodies. Madeline just blinks at him in silence.

“Time to lighten up a bit, no?”

He rolls the joint with impressive speed, licking the edge delicately and lighting it with a vintage brass lighter that looks more expensive than anything Madeline has ever owned. He takes the first drag and hands it to Anaïs with a wink. Soon, the joint makes its slow orbit around the table, leaving laughter and clouds of white smoke between the empty bottles and the dirty plates.

When Helen hands it to Madeline, she hesitates—but only for a moment. This is not a battle she’s going to lose. She’s the one who taught Helen to smoke, for God’s sake. She takes a long inhale, probably a little longer than necessary, and lets the smoke trail lazily from her lips in that particular way that always gets people to stare. She doesn’t need to look at Helen to know she’s watching her.

They pass the joint around until it's gone, but Marcello has already rolled a new one by then.

“How are you liking Italy so far, Madeline?” He asks, offering her the freshly lit joint. “Is it living up to your expectations?”

Madeline smiles coyly and takes it, making sure her fingers brush against his, her touch lingering a second longer than necessary. Marcello’s hand is frozen in place as Madeline leans back on her chair and takes a long drag. All eyes are on her now. Good.

“This place is really beautiful,” she says, her tone a little too melodramatic. But everyone is high as fuck right now, so they’ll probably eat her little act up. “Helen wasn't lying when she told me I'd love it. It's even better than I ever imagined. I thought—”

“Wait, wait,” Salley interrupts her. Madeline turns her head slowly to glower at her, but Salley doesn’t notice her anger—her eyes are glassy, and her words drag when she speaks. Lightweight, Madeline thinks to herself. It doesn’t make her feel much better. “This is your first time in Italy?” she asks. She sounds genuinely surprised. Almost offended.

Madeline shifts uncomfortably in her seat and offers her the joint to shut her up for a bit.

“You've never been to Rome? Or Sicily?” Salley lets out a little gasp. “Oh my God, you’ve never been to Florence?”

“Oooh, Florence. We had such a great time that summer,” says Anaïs, who isn't even paying any attention to the conversation. She's sitting with her head tilted back, eyes fixed on the stars in the night sky. She looks like she’s about to pass out.

“Remember when we went to the dome?” Marcello says, laughing stupidly. “God, I've never climbed so many stairs in my life. It was traumatizing.”

“I heard somewhere that there are like 415 steps,” Anaïs says. “Fucking crazy.”

“No, it’s worse. I read that there are more.”

Marcello and Anaïs continue to argue about how many fucking stairs there are in the stupid dome of Florence while Madeline clenches her jaw, a strange knot of anxiety settling in the pit of her stomach. She feels like she's just forgotten her lines on opening night.

Salley leans toward her, her brows twisted with concern. Her breath reeks of alcohol and smoke. “Seriously, you've never been to Florence?”

Madeline’s shoulders slump.

“Yes,” she mumbles, fingers fidgeting over the rim of her wine glass. “Never.”

Then, there’s a sound that makes Madeline’s heart skip a beat, a chill run down her spine. Across the table, Helen is laughing. It's not even a loud laugh, just a little chuckle that spills out of her lips as if she can't hold herself back even though she’s trying very hard to. A chuckle laden with cruelty and condescension.

“I mean… Madeline doesn't travel much,” she says. “Am I right, Maddie?”

Madeline feels almost breathless when she slowly turns to Helen, and she finds her staring right at her with a sharp smile and eyes darkened by alcohol.

She looks amused. Like she’s having so much fun at her expense. She looks like she’s waiting for Madeline to react, almost expectant.

Marcello chimes in before Madeline can open her mouth to spit out some insult that will surely make all of Helen’s stupid friends gasp in horror.

“Didn’t Helen mention your family’s from—where was it again?”

“Newark,” Madeline says flatly.

Salley smiles. “It’s charming. Very American.”

More laughter. The four of them this time, laughing as if the comment were the funniest thing they have ever heard in their lives. Madeline feels the sound, the sharp edge of it all like a punch on the gut.

She presses her lips into a thin line and stays quiet.

After a brief moment of laughter and memories of more trips than Madeline could ever have dreamed of, the topic of the conversation changes again—university, work. Their families and their businesses. Thankfully, everyone seems to have forgotten about her making a comment about wanting to be an actress. God only knows what they’d think of that.

“So, Helen,” Anaïs says, gesturing with her wine glass. “How is law school going? This is your last year, right?”

Helen blinks, confused.

“What?”

“Weren’t you studying law at—God, what’s it called? One of those Ivy League universities?”

Helen stares at her, eyes wide in disbelief. Madeline doesn’t miss the way her shoulders drop, the slight twitch of her eyebrow.

“No. That’s—that was my brother,” she says, her voice suddenly small. “I-I’m studying English, actually. I want to—"

“Oh!” Anaïs says brightly. “That’s right. Literature. Our Helen always wanted to be an artist,” she says, and it should come out like a compliment, like she’s fondly remembering her time with Helen, but it doesn’t.

“I want to be an author,” Helen says. She sounds almost apologetic.

There is a beat. The three of them—her so-called friends—look at each other, then back at her. Then a light, distracted, “Ah.”

No one says anything else. No one asks a follow-up question.

Madeline sees it clear as the day. The way Helen’s spine straightens just so, the slight tremble at her jaw. The secondhand embarrassment of being brushed aside by the people she’s worked her whole life to be comfortable around. The people she considers her equals, her friends.

Madeline almost feels sorry for her. Almost.

But she can't help it. A smile tugs at the corners of her lips. A strange satisfaction spreads through her body. Good, Madeline thinks, and the words burn in her throat like poison. She wants to yell at Helen. Have a taste of your own medicine.

Later, everyone has slumped back into their chairs, a haze of weed and wine settling in. Helen excuses herself under the pretense that it’s starting to get cold and she wants to grab a jacket. Everyone nods without paying much attention to her, so Helen gets up and disappears in the house without another word.

Madeline waits a couple of minutes before she follows her inside.

She’s not sure why she does it. Part of her just needs to breathe, to remove herself from the scene for once. Outside, the party carries on without her.

Madeline walks into the kitchen, now dark and cool and a little eerie, and leans against the cold marble counter, eyes closed. Helen is nowhere to be seen, so Madeline assumes she must have locked herself in the bedroom to wallow in self-pity for a while.

For some reason, thinking about Helen makes the palms of her hands start to sweat. She opens the fridge, grabs the first bottle she sees, and presses it against her neck. The sharp cold almost makes her jump, but it helps her cool off a bit.

She can hear laughter floating in through the open window. It makes her remember Helen’s laugh, the way she looked at Madeline when she made that comment. When she knew she would hurt Madeline, and chose to say it anyway. Sharp and cold and cruel. Madeline wants to be angry, but mostly she feels pathetic.

With a long sigh, she puts the bottle back in the fridge and starts looking for Helen. The villa is dim and quiet, all the lights turned off, so it doesn’t take her too long to find Helen in the hallway bathroom, the door ajar. She’s sitting on the edge of the tub, clutching the sink towel like it might steady her breathing. Her cheeks are wet, like she has just splashed water on her face. Or cried. Or both, probably.

After a quick glance around, Madeline slips into the bathroom and locks the door behind her. She can still hear the conversations, the laughter, revibrating in her ears. Can smell the sweetness of spilled wine on the tablecloth. Can feel its taste in her tongue, its heat in her limbs.

She can—

“Go back outside.”

Helen's voice is harsh, but her eyes are red and puffy when she looks at her.

"What are you doing here?" Madeline says, and she’s only slightly embarrassed that she sounds so incredibly worried.

"I needed something to cool down," Helen says. As if to make a point of her words, she opens the bill and splashes some water on her face. It falls on her neck and her shirt and Madeline looks away when she notices how her skin starts to show right where the shirt got wet.

“Relax, I don't think your friends will mind,” Madeline says, spitting out the word friends like it physically hurts her to say it.

Helen frowns, crossing her arms over her chest. Her glasses slide down to the tip of her nose and her cheeks are red, though Madeline can’t really tell if it's because of the alcohol or the crying or the sudden heat in the bathroom.

“What about my friends? Please, don’t tell me you were offended by their stupid jokes,” Helen says, lifting her chin. “I hate to break it to you, but not everyone is going to kiss the ground Madeline Ashton walks on.”

“I don't give a fuck what those stuck-up assholes say or think about me,” Madeline says. She's lying, of course, and Helen knows it. Helen knows more than anyone just how much Madeline cares about what others think about her, all the effort she puts into ensuring that the image she projects for the rest of the world to see is perfectly crafted. “Is that why you brought me here, Helen? You wanted me to come to your little paradise to be the butt of your jokes? So your snobbish friends could laugh at me, and you could feel a little better about yourself?”

“Shut up.”

“You brought me here because you were so desperate to have at least one place in this world where you aren’t just known only as ‘Madeline's friend’?”

“Shut up!” Helen says, raising her voice louder than Madeline has ever heard her. “Do you know why I brought you here? Huh? Do you really want to know?”

Madeline clenches her jaw, but doesn't answer.

“I brought you here because it's the only way you can afford this,” Helen says, an edged smirk on her lips, a wild gleam in her eyes. “You could never pay for this, not even in your wildest dreams. The trip, the house—all of it is out of your reach. And I've chosen to be generous to my friend, because—”

“No, Helen,” Madeline interrupts. Her voice is low, simmering with anger. “That's where you're wrong,” she says. Helen’s eyebrows twitch slightly in confusion. “The truth is that you brought me here because I'm the only person who would have come with you. I'm your best friend and your only friend. I'm the only person who can moderately tolerate you, and you know it.” She scoffs, shaking her head. "Look at your so-called friends. They don't even know what you study. They don’t care. They don't care about you in the slightest. All they care about is going home and telling their parents how well they get along with the Sharps' daughter. How lame she is and how cool they are.”

“You have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Admit it, Helen. You need me,” Madeline says. “You need me because I’m your only friend.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh, really? Come on. Tell me I'm wrong.” She takes a step toward Helen, to stand face to face with her. A challenge. Madeline never loses. “Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t need me, Hel.”

“Madeline...”

So Helen does. Helen looks her in the eye, her chest heaving erratically, her jaw trembling ever so slightly. She looks like she's about to scream, to burst into tears. She looks like she's about to slap Madeline.

Madeline smiles, tilting her head and raising an eyebrow.

She waits for the insult. She waits for the hit, the pain. She waits for the lie.

And—

And suddenly their bodies are close, so close that there’s barely any space left between them, and an almost burnt-out lightbulb flickers and Madeline stares at Helen’s face, oddly stunning under this lighting, her features flashing before Madeline like she has never seen them before: her bright eyes, her jaw, her nose. Her damp cheeks. A single drop of water running down her long neck, disappearing under her shirt, right where Madeline catches a glimpse of her collarbone. Her lips are parted and wet and Madeline has never noticed before, but the curve of her mouth is beautiful, pink and full, straight out of a painting. Fuck, Madeline thinks (Madeline realizes), she’s beautiful, and she’s a little too high and also not high enough for this. She can’t hide how she’s been staring at Helen's mouth for what feels like an eternity, how she’s moved closer and closer and closer and Helen has her back pressed against the door and she’s looking at Madeline, too. She’s looking at Madeline and she’s—she’s waiting.

A second of silence, then another. And then…

Madeline doesn’t know who leans in first, but suddenly they are crashing their lips against each other and Helen is kissing her, deep and messy, biting her bottom lip in a way that makes her almost whimper with need. Helen kisses her like no one has ever kissed her before, hands squeezing her hips, pressing their bodies closer together with a determination that Madeline would have never expected from her meek, nerdy little friend. There is no trace of her usual gentle smiles and soft words when she holds Madeline and pushes her against the door with a thud.

"Holy shit," Madeline whines, partly because of the feeling of her body slamming against the door, but also because Helen is leaving wet, open-mouthed kisses on her jaw, right where the neck and the ear meet. "Holy fucking shit."

“Sorry,” Helen says, hot breath ghosting over Madeline's right ear. Her grip softens ever so slightly, and Madeline can hear a low giggle when she adds: “Too rough?”

“Shut up,” Madeline says through gritted teeth, reaching up to tangle her hands in Helen’s red hair, pulling her away from her skin to look at her face.

For a moment, Madeline wonders. Why is she doing this? Why does she want to keep doing this, to keep staring at Helen’s beautiful face, to keep her body close to hers? She’s never thought about her this way before. Not consciously, at least. Yes, sometimes she sees a flash of red hair or green eyes in her dreams. A voice that sounds a little too similar to Helen calling her name. But that doesn’t mean anything. This has never crossed her mind. Why now?

Still, she takes one look at her—swollen lips, dark eyes, the ghost of a smile on her lips—and all she can do is tighten her fingers in Helen’s hair, pulling her back in to capture her lips. Helen responds urgently to the kiss, and whatever cheeky remark she was ready to make dies in her throat with a soft whine when Madeline digs her nails into the skin of her back, where her shirt has run up slightly just above the waistband of her linen pants.

When they finally break apart, both of them are breathing hard. Madeline looks at her, eyes wide, chest rising and falling, and she’s about to lean in again when Helen takes a step back, her lips trembling. Something strange flashes across her face—fear, realization, Madeline can’t quite tell—and she presses a hand to her mouth, as if she can somehow not believe what just happened.

“We should…” she says hoarsely. “We should probably go back. T-They must be worried about us.”

Outside, Helen’s friends are still laughing, their voices distant and harmless. Madeline is pretty sure they could disappear for the rest of the night and nobody would even care in the slightest. She knows Helen is well aware of it, too.

“Yeah, you’re right,” she says instead, shrugging as if her whole body wasn’t on fire right now. As if her lips weren’t itching to kiss Helen again. “Let’s go back.”

The villa is still when Helen wakes.

Light leaks through the shutters, pale and gentle, the kind that makes it feel like you’re watching the world through a dreamy haze. It’s already well past noon. Her head throbs faintly, and her tongue feels heavy and dry in her mouth. The smell of last night’s wine still clings to her clothes. It makes her retch.

She sits up slowly, blinking toward the bed across the room. She can’t really remember when or how Madeline went to bed, only that after the… situation in the bathroom, the rest of the night became a blur of awkward conversations, silence, and the two of them avoiding each other.

Helen rubs her eyes with the heel of her hand and sighs. She takes a long, cold shower and dresses in an old shirt—sleeves rolled up, collar open—and shorts that once belonged to her brother. She ties her hair back loosely and walks to the kitchen, her stomach growling.

The air is cool down there, the sun not yet shining down on it. She opens the windows, letting the gentle breeze in, and looks for some leftovers from the night before to reheat. She doesn't have the energy to start cooking, even though the gardener has left some beautiful shiny tomatoes on the countertop.

She turns on the radio, letting it hum softly on the counter to fill the silence, too loud for her mind to bear right now. Images from the night before flash through her mind—the wine, the weed, the condescending laughter. The fight with Madeline, the kiss. The kisses, if her mind isn't actually playing tricks on her. Her lips still burn when she thinks about it.

“Morning.”

Helen puts her hand to her chest, her heart racing wildly against her ribs. As if on cue, Madeline appears in the doorway, her voice raspy like she has just woken up. Her hair is tangled, her eyes bloodshot, and she’s still wearing the same dress from the night before, which makes Helen’s stomach churn at the sudden wave of memories rushing through her brain.

Helen tries her best to make her voice sound normal. She fails miserably, but Madeline is probably too hungover to notice. “Good morning, Mad. I thought you would sleep all day.”

Madeline rubs her eyes, leaning on the doorframe.

“I smelled food.”

“Just some leftovers from last night,” Helen says, trying to smile. “You know I’m not particularly gifted at cooking, so…”

Madeline shrugs and crosses the room to sit on the countertop, her feet dangling. For a while neither of them speaks. Only the radio fills the space between them—a woman’s voice singing in Italian, fast and joyful. Helen hums under her breath while Madeline watches her.

“Last night was… something.”

Helen freezes for just a second.

“Yes,” she says carefully. “It was.”

She doesn't know what to expect. She doesn't even know if Madeline remembers what happened between them. Hell, she's not even sure if it actually happened or if it was just a vivid dream. A weed-induced fantasy.

“I mean, your friends are lovely,” Madeline goes on, her tone dry. “Rich people are so… charming.”

Helen shoots her a look.

“C’mon, Hel,” Madeline says, smiling weakly. “You know I’m right.”

Helen clenches her jaw, but says nothing. The sound of the radio and plates being laid on the wooden table cuts through the silence, heavier and more tense than before.

It’s Madeline who speaks again, quieter this time. “I didn’t mean to ruin your night.”

Helen glances up with a frown. The last thing she would have expected was for Madeline to apologize. Maybe she’s still dreaming, or drunk. Or both.

“You didn’t ruin anything, Mad.”

Madeline tilts her head. “It felt like I did.”

“You didn’t,” Helen repeats, her tone a little harsher than she intends to. “It was… a strange night.”

Madeline nods, eyes fixed on the floor.

“I didn’t expect us—” She stops herself, biting her lip. “I didn’t expect us to fight. Not like that.”

“We fight all the time,” she says softly.

Helen looks down at the plate of reheated pasta in front of her, a tight knot in her throat. She wonders if Madeline can hear the loud beating of her heart in her chest.

“Yeah, we do,” Madeline says, a faint smile tugging at her mouth. “And somehow we always end up here again.”

Helen places two plates on the wooden table.

“You were right last night,” she says. “My friends are assholes.”

“I didn’t—”

“And they don't care about me,” Helen continues, the words spilling out of her mouth uncontrollably. Saying it out loud hurts more than she expected. “But you—” She chokes up. The admission feels harder than it should be. Heavier. Not like an absolute truth that both of them already know, but something more. It’s always been something more. “You’re my best friend, Mad.”

The radio grows louder suddenly when Helen’s elbow accidentally nudges the volume knob. The song changes, now brighter.

Madeline looks at her with an unreadable expression as the first lively notes of the song play. Then, her expression softens into a smile as she slides off the counter, extending her hand to Helen.

“The party isn’t over yet, huh?”

Before Helen can refuse, Madeline catches her hand and pulls her into the center of the kitchen, her smile impossibly bright. The tiled floor is cool beneath their bare feet, and the song echoes throughout the kitchen, cheerful and giddy. Madeline won't let her go—she intertwines her fingers with Helen's, moving awkwardly and without rhythm at first, trying to shake off Helen's shyness. Helen tries to resist, she really does, but Madeline won't let her.

Madeline twirls her, clumsily but with intent, and Helen’s smile becomes wider, more earnest.

They get closer, their bodies almost touching, jumping and moving their arms, trying to hum along to lyrics they don't know. E vola, vola, si sa. Sempre più in alto si va. Helen laughs, throwing her head back, while Madeline sways in front of her, singing at the top of her lungs.

When their eyes meet, Helen feels her heart trip in her chest.

Madeline squeezes her hand.

“See? We can still have fun. We don’t need anyone else.”

Helen nods, barely breathing. “Just the two of us.”

When the song ends, they stand there for a moment, still swaying to the echo of it. Helen pulls away gently, clearing her throat, her skin burning right where Madeline’s fingertips were seconds ago.

“We should eat. Before the food gets cold.”

“Right,” Madeline says. “Before the food gets cold.”

But she stays where she is, leaning against the counter, her eyes lingering on Helen for a second too long before she turns her back to her.

That afternoon, they lie by the pool, a cracked marble oval shaded by trees, the water shimmering blue and clean, dusted with fallen petals and leaves that the gentle summer breeze dragged along. A couple of faded chaise longues lean against one wall, and a huge hammock hangs from the thickest branches of the trees. Helen is there, reading a book with a pencil tucked behind her ear and a glass of iced lemon tea by her side to help her with the hangover, while Madeline floats in the water on her back, eyes closed, drifting lazily.

They don’t talk. The world is quiet except for the cicadas and the distant hum of a car driving to town. Every so often, Madeline glances toward Helen, and Helen glances toward Madeline when the other is pretending not to notice.

The day stretches out like a held breath. They don't spend time together, but they aren't apart either. They hover around each other, like they want to get closer but don't know how. In the end, it's Madeline who breaks the silence when she approaches Helen to tell her she's going to take a shower.

Helen just shrugs and goes back to her book.

Madeline spends a long time under the hot water. Her limbs still feel stiff and numb from the hangover, although the headache is thankfully gone. However, her mind is a whirlwind of memories from the night before that she can't really make sense of.

The bathroom is steaming with the scent of Helen’s expensive shampoo and lavender soap by the time Madeline finally walks out of the shower. The tiles are slick under her feet as she reaches for a towel and slips into her night clothes, humming softly to herself. She wonders if Helen will keep giving her the silent treatment for the rest of the day—or worse, for the rest of the trip.

Madeline glances down from the top of the stairs, but Helen doesn't seem to be back yet. The bedroom is already dim, lit only by the low lamp beside Helen’s bed. Madeline crouches to grab her dress, which she carelessly tossed on the floor, and notices something odd: the corner of a metal box poking out from beneath the bedframe. She hesitates, listening closely to make sure Helen is still downstairs, then tugs it free. It’s old, the paint chipped and the corners rusty. Madeline recognizes the illustration on the lid—a faded picture of that yellow rat from a videogame that Helen finds so cute. It makes her chuckle under her breath. Nerd, she thinks, smiling fondly.

Out of pure curiosity—or maybe something more—she opens it.

Inside, she finds what she believes are some tokens from Helen’s past summers in the villa: some seashells, crumpled postcards, a glass jar filled with sand from the beach. There is a folded piece of paper that Madeline opens; it’s a magazine clipping with a photograph of a blonde woman she recognizes as Raffaella Carrá. At the bottom of the box, there is a small pile of old notebooks with stickers on the covers.

Madeline picks up one and turns a few pages. Most of the entries are short summaries of the day—fragments about books Helen read, mornings spent alone at the beach, watching meteor showers with her cousins. Judging by the dates and the handwriting of a child pretending to be an adult, they must have been written some years ago. Some are sweet and innocent, but others make Madeline's heart sink.

“Summer again. Everyone’s gone except dad and me. I wish someone would come visit. It’s lonely here.”

Madeline swallows, the room feeling suddenly too big for just one girl. She imagines Helen—the Helen she knows, reserved but feisty when she has to be—sitting alone in her bed, waiting for the summer to be over.

“Madeline?”

Madeline freezes. The diary drops from her hands, falling over the open box with a clang.

Helen stands in the doorway, her hair damp and a towel slung around her shoulders. Her expression shifts from confusion to something sharper when she sees the open box next to Madeline.

“What are you doing?” she asks quietly, though there’s an icy edge to her voice that tells Madeline all she needs to know. She’s not happy about this.

Madeline shuts the lid quickly.

“I—I wasn’t trying to pry, I just saw it and I thought—”

“That’s private.”

“I know, I know,” Madeline says, setting it back under the bed. “I wasn’t snooping, I swear.” She stops herself, searching Helen’s face. “You were lonely here. Is that why—?”

Helen’s jaw tightens, but her tone doesn’t rise. “I said that’s private, Madeline.”

For a moment, neither moves, the air between them too thick, too full.

Madeline sighs and nods slowly. “Yeah. You’re right. I’m sorry, Hel.”

Helen says nothing. She crosses the room in two quick steps and kneels beside Madeline, sliding the metal box back beneath the bed, her hands trembling just slightly.

Madeline watches her, something tender and aching rising in her chest. Her fingers gently touch Helen’s arm, and Helen doesn’t pull away. She smells like chlorine and tea and Madeline thinks she wants to kiss her again, just to see if she’ll taste just the same.

Helen stands, brushing her hands against her shorts, not looking back at Madeline. It might be the lighting, but Madeline thinks she sees her blush. “It’s late, Mad.”

Madeline nods again, hesitating before standing up and turning toward the door.

“You have me now, you know,” she says softly.

Helen’s lips part, but no words come out.

A little later, Helen finds Madeline on the big balcony right across the hallway, hair still damp from her shower, looking up at the starry sky. The moon hangs low over the top of the trees and the night breeze is starting to get colder, the first sign that the summer is coming to an end. Helen isn’t sure how that makes her feel.

Madeline is sitting cross-legged on tiles, fiddling with something small in her hands.

“What’s that?” Helen asks, stepping closer.

Madeline looks up with a sheepish grin. “A peace offering?”

She holds up a small tin, barely big enough to fit in her palm. Helen instantly recognizes it, a wave of memories from the night before washing over her. She blinks, confused, and frowns.

“Where did you get that? Isn’t that—?”

Madeline bits her lip, trying to hold back a smile, looking both mischievous and stupidly proud of herself. She holds the tiny box between her fingers, waving it in front of Helen.

“Your friend Marcello left it on the table. I thought it would be a waste to give it back so soon,” she says, the lie so obvious that it almost makes Helen roll her eyes.

“You stole it.”

Madeline shrugs. “I don’t think he will miss it that much, anyway.”

“You know how expensive that must have been?”

“Yeah, that’s why I took it.” She throws the tin into the air and catches it again. “Call me a working class hero.”

Helen crosses her arms, arching one of her eyebrows. “So you did steal it.” She tries to look disapproving, but she can’t quite manage it. Not when Madeline’s smile is so disarmingly wide. “You’re unbelievable.”

“I know,” Madeline says. “That’s why you like me.”

Helen shakes her head, but sits down beside her anyway. The floor is cold underneath her, and it sends a shiver down her spine. Madeline scoots closer to her without a word, and now their arms are brushing.

“You realize if my parents—or worse, my grandma—find out—”

“They’re not here.”

“Still…”

Madeline waves her hand dismissively and takes an already rolled joint out of the tin. With a playful smile, she lights it, the flame briefly illuminating her face. She inhales, exhales, and passes it over, tilting her head in a way that makes her eyes glimmer underneath the moonlight.

“C’mon, Hel,” she says. “Don’t be a bore.”

There is something slightly cruel in Madeline's tone, in the way she chooses that word out of everything she could say. A bore. That’s what the girls in her class call Helen behind her back. What her ex-boyfriend called her before he broke up with her—and before she found him making out with Madeline at a party Helen wasn't invited to because everyone thought she was too boring.

Helen hesitates, then takes it. She does it so quickly that the smoke burns her throat, and she coughs, feeling the tears in the corner of her eyes.

“Wow,” Madeline says, watching her. “Very glamorous.”

Helen clears her throat and chuckles, passing it back. “Shut up, you bitch.”

They fall into an easy rhythm—smoke, laugh, pass, repeat—that reminds Helen of things back at home. The tension between them mellows, dissolving into the smoke and haze above their heads.

Madeline leans back on her elbows, looking up at the stars. Her expression is—strange, Helen thinks. Hard to read. Madeline always puts on a front for others, but Helen can see right through her. She never can seem to understand her, though, at times like this, when she is being sincere.

“What’s wrong?” Helen asks, tilting her head.

Madeline smiles faintly. “I don’t know. I think this place is messing with my brain.”

Helen watches her profile in the moonlight, her chest tightening.

“What do you mean?”

Madeline turns her head, eyes finding hers. Helen feels a sudden urge to run away, but her body doesn’t respond. It’s like there’s some kind of magnetic force pulling her close to Madeline at all times.

“Last night. We said some things.” A beat. Madeline’s jaw twitches slightly. “We… We did some things.”

Helen looks down at her hands. “We were drunk. And high.”

“So what? That doesn't mean it didn't happen.”

“That’s not the point.”

Madeline laughs softly, but it’s a hollow sound. “Then what is the point?”

Helen doesn’t answer. Her head feels heavy from the weed and her heart is racing in her chest. She fidgets with her hands, watching the moonlight reflect off the chipped nail polish on her bitten nails. She always lets it chip—it’s a little ritual of theirs. Madeline will notice her messy nails, she will shake her head, and she will take Helen’s hands and carefully repaint her nails. Helen likes the feel of Madeline's fingers against her skin, likes the way her eyebrows twist and she presses her tongue against her teeth when she’s concentrating very hard on something.

She likes Madeline so much that it scares her sometimes.

“I know you went back to the restaurant that day,” she mumbles. “I could see it in your face.”

She can see a flash of something akin to guilt cross Madeline’s face.

“You always get this look, you know,” Helen says, unable to stop herself, “when a guy pays attention to you. It's kind of pathetic.”

Madeline exhales sharply through her nose. And much to Helen's surprise, she doesn't get angry. She doesn't get up to leave or yells at her. She doesn't insult her or attack her with something she knows will hurt her deeper than anything Helen could call her.

She just shrugs and says, “Yeah, you’re right. I'm pathetic.”

“Everything is a game to you,” Helen says, and she hates how it sounds like she's about to cry. “I can never tell if you’re doing something because you mean it or if you're doing it just because you can. So excuse me for believing that maybe this wasn’t real either.”

There is silence for a moment, and then Helen feels Madeline move next to her. She sees her take a long drag on the joint and suddenly Madeline is inching closer, fingers brushing the back of Helen’s neck, and Helen inevitably parts her lips, letting Madeline blow a stream of smoke into her.

Helen’s breath hitches. “Madeline—”

Their faces are so close that Helen can almost feel Madeline’s eyelashes tickling her, her hot breath against her mouth. They’re so close that Madeline is just a blurry shape in front of Helen. They’re so close that it shouldn’t come as a surprise when Madeline leans in, closing the barely existent space between them, and kisses Helen.

It’s quick and soft and careful, just an attempt. A question. Is this okay? And for a brief moment, Helen allows herself to melt into the kiss, into Madeline’s warmth. She isn’t even thinking anymore, too caught up in the feeling, in the strange ease of Madeline’s mouth against hers.

When they pull away, Madeline is smiling.

“Feels real enough to me,” she says.

Helen sits there for a second, still in shock before something inside her just clicks and she’s kissing Madeline again, crashing their lips together in a frantic motion.

It’s because of the weed, is the only thing Helen thinks.

When her hands grab Madeline’s face and pull her closer, it’s because of the weed. When Madeline’s tongue slips into her mouth, it’s because of the weed. When Helen starts kissing down Madeline’s cheek, her jaw, her neck, it’s because of the weed.

Madeline makes a sound in the back of her throat that sounds a little too much like a moan. Meanwhile, Helen’s hands weave into her blonde hair, the noise pushing her to move back to Madeline’s mouth, to try and capture that sound with her own lips.

“Let’s go,” Helen says between kisses, her voice a breathless whisper, “back inside.”

Madeline nods eagerly, and then they are kissing on Helen’s bed under the glow-in-the-dark stickers that Helen’s parents put there because she was scared of the dark as a child, and Helen's limbs feel entirely too light and too heavy at the same time, but Madeline's lips against her skin keep her grounded. Madeline is right—this is very much real. This is actually happening. Helen is here, and Madeline is here, and they're kissing because they want to, and Helen is pretty sure she's a little obsessed with Madeline and she will never be able to forget this.

They just kiss, although Helen is pretty sure that they both want more, but she is also sure that things would get out of hand if they went any further, so they decide to be practical. They decide that this has to be enough. That this is all they can have, and at the end of the day it’s still better than having nothing at all.

“I never want to stop feeling this way about you,” Helen whispers.

Madeline pulls away, and she looks at Helen in a way that’s so impossibly soft, so impossibly gentle that it makes Helen’s chest ache for something she knows she can’t have.

“Who says you have to?”

Helen feels her jaw tighten. Why is Madeline pretending she doesn't understand? Why is Madeline acting as if this—as if they—weren't doomed from the start? They both know it. They've known it from the beginning. They'll go home, and things will go back to the way they were, and they'll both keep pretending none of this ever happened.

She wants to tell Madeline. She wants to tell her that she stopped crossing the days out of her calendar as soon as they arrived, hoping that it would somehow make their time together longer. Like days didn’t pass until Helen crossed them out with her red pen. Like they truly had all summer to be together again and again and again.

But none of that is real.

At least, Helen thinks, a strange kind of relief washing over her when Madeline kisses her again, she will have this memory to hold on to forever. That’ll have to do.

The villa is already a shadow when they drive away. The windows closed, the gravel driveway empty, the trees swaying silently. Helen doesn’t look back, though Madeline does. Just once. From the backseat of the car, she twists slightly and watches the roof disappear behind a row of cypress trees, swallowed by the sun. It’s like saying goodbye to someone you love, and knowing it’ll be the last time you see them.

Her eyes sting a little when she turns around.

No one says anything. The driver hums along to a radio station playing softly through the speakers. Helen keeps her eyes on the passing landscape. This time she is sitting in the back, close but not too close to Madeline. One of her hands rests in her lap; the other on the middle seat, almost waiting. Madeline stares out her own window, sunglasses on, not looking at anything in particular.

She reaches for Helen’s hand and intertwines their fingers together. She can hear Helen exhale sharply, then her body relaxing, her hand squeezing Madeline’s ever so gently.

“I’m glad you came,” Helen says, almost too soft to hear.

Madeline nods. “Me too.”

She wants to say more. There are things on the tip of her tongue, memories and moments and feelings she doesn’t have the guts to name. She wants to ask questions that she knows they are both too afraid to ask.

In spite of everything, in spite of their relentless cruelty toward each other, in spite of the jealousy that eats Madeline from inside out when she sees all the things that Helen has and that she knows she’ll never be able to get, Madeline is happy. She’s happy that Helen invited her over, even if it was for selfish reasons. She’s always happy when she’s with Helen, even when Helen is being a bitch, even when Madeline herself is being a bitch and they’re only hurting each other on purpose. There’s a special sort of happiness that Madeline only finds when she’s Helen. It’s something she wants to keep. She wants to find somewhere safe, like that stupid Pokémon metal box under Helen’s bed, and keep this away from the rest of the world.

Days will pass and summer will end, and Madeline and Helen will go back to being—well, just Madeline and Helen. The summer will become a memory. They will mention it in passing during a conversation, and there will be a silence that lasts a second too long, which only they will understand. There will be photos and postcards and songs that bring back memories that will always hurt a little.

Summer will be over, and they won’t talk about it again.

Both of them will remember it. That’s all.