Neither of them understood English, and my Italian was so limited that I was too embarrassed to try to speak it. We gave up on games and conversation and instead walked down to the little stretch of private beach by our villa. I had my swimsuit on under my clothes. At the quiet shore, I undressed, feeling suddenly embarrassed by the faded pink stripes of my modest one-piece swimsuit. It looked ratty out here in the glorious sunlight, old and ill-fitting and babyish.
I didn’t want Curse to think I was a baby.
In order to prove that I wasn’t, I hurried forward into the ocean. Once I was in the water, no one would really see my swimsuit anymore. And I could show off my swimming skills, honed over years at the rec centre closest to our place in Buffalo.
But the ocean is not a rec centre pool. Sicily’s shore was gorgeous but ultimately merciless. A current I didn’t expect, a stretch of sand that dropped away beneath my feet without warning, and I was in over my head. Literally.
I always thought that something as terrifying as drowning would be loud. Chaotic. That it would involve a lot of splashing and screaming.
But I couldn’t make a sound. My eyes stung. My lungs burned. The ocean laughed, pulsing in my clogged ears, taunting me. Telling me I really was a baby after all. Or at the very least, a fool.
I don’t remember how long I spent that way, suspended somewhere above unconsciousness, about to slip under the way my head had slipped under the waves.
But I do remember the hands that seized on me. Hands not that much bigger than my own, but steadfast and sure. Strong.
They grabbed me from behind, so I couldn’t climb my rescuer the way my body begged me to. Shame would plague me afterwards for that – the fact that I would have pushed my saviour below the waves to save myself if he’d come at me from even a slightly different angle. A simple survival instinct, certainly, but one I loathed all the same.
When my head broke water and stayed above it this time, I gasped and began to sob. Through the salt of the ocean spray and my own tears, I saw black hair plastered to a young face beside my own. Curse was dragging me, half swimming, half barely treading water with our combined weight. I kicked weakly, trying to help him while also clawing and clutching at him. In my terror, I scratched red lines down his face with my nails. He didn’t even flinch.
By the time we reached a sandy spot where we could both stand, Florencia was on her feet, already up to her knees in the water, her skirt soaking wet and her face twisted in panic. She shouted frantically at Curse in Italian, wading deeper as Curse led me bodily to her. My legs didn’t want to work. I leaned on Curse, who I only now noticed was still fully clothed. His leather shoes squelched.
Florencia had her shoes on too, beautiful sandals that I feared were ruined now by the salt.
“I’m so sorry,” I babbled, knowing they wouldn’t be able to understand me, especially through the snot and water and tears. Humiliation shook me nearly as violently as the fear did. Every muscle trembled as Florencia took me from Curse and carried me to the dry sand, setting me down and listening to my chest, my lungs. Curse stood back, breathing hard, as his mamma fussed over me.
He didn’t let his gaze stray from me. Not once.
I don’t think he even blinked. His dark hair curled over his brows, dripping water into his eyes that he ignored completely.
It soon became clear to everyone that I was alright. Other than some water going up my nose, I hadn’t inhaled any significant amount into my lungs. But despite the fact that I was ultimately fine, there was no doubt in my mind that, had I been out there even one minute longer, this story would have had an entirely different ending. An ending where the stupid American girl, the dumb baby in the too-small swimsuit, wasn’t breathing anymore.
Florencia made it obvious, even with the language barrier, that I wasn’t to go back into the water. I nodded and apologized once more, wishing the day was already over. Wishing that the beautiful Curse would never look at me again.
Curse peeled off his soaked shoes, socks, shirt, and trousers, revealing swim shorts underneath. He laid his things on the boulders that ringed the inlet of the private beach, placing everything with exceptional care, smoothing out the creases in the fabric. It made me look at my own discarded pile of messy clothing with a fresh surge of mortification. I crouched to fold my things, assuming that Curse would now abandon me to go swim on his own in the water he obviously had no trouble with.
But when I looked up from my now-folded clothes, there he was standing right above me. He’d scraped his wet hair back away from his face, and his eyes were focused and patient. As if he’d stand there until the sun set, just waiting for me to stand up and notice him.
And then he smiled, all quiet sunshine and sweetness and missing baby teeth. A dimple appeared on his left cheek. I wanted so badly to press my finger to that place. I dug my nails into my palms, just to keep myself from doing it.
Curse stayed with me. He didn’t swim without me. Even more than saving me, his decision not to abandon me in the aftermath branded itself on my childish heart. It would have been so easy for him to decide I was too young, too annoying, too much work to play with. So easy for him to discard me.
But he didn’t.
Together, we scoured the beach for shells and special stones, collecting them in little rocky pools like they were potion ingredients. Inside my head, I pretended I was making a love potion. Something magical to link me to him long after I had gone home. Something to make him feel about me the way I felt about him. Because already, with the vulnerable intensity only children seem to be capable of, I loved him.
For the next two weeks, Curse was my everything. Papà spent all his time in Taormina with business associates.
Curse spent all his time with me.
We shared cups of lemon granita that melted nearly as quickly as we could spoon it into our mouths, plucked frangipani flowers and orange blossoms, and spent so long in the sun that even with loads of sunscreen, my face was perpetually pink. Meanwhile, Curse never burned, only tanned.
I’d spent the first six years of my life believing in heaven, doubly so after Mamma died, because she was good, and it didn’t make sense that she would be anywhere now but somewhere wonderful. But those days I spent with Curse represented the first time in my life I ever wondered if heaven might be a place on earth instead.
Because being there with him was paradise to me.
Until it all came crashing down.
My papà was agitated that morning. He often was, and it usually had nothing to do with me, so I didn’t think much of it when I asked him if we were seeing the Giordanos again that day. But the mere mention of their name made redness rise like thunderclouds in his neck, his face.
