Things That Don't Stay Buried
1341 Words
The church bells struck two.
Camilla stood outside Marina’s, half-expecting the door to be locked despite Matteo’s invitation. Her camera bag hung over one shoulder, and her palms were faintly damp. She hadn’t been nervous last night, or this morning on the terrace. But something about being invited back made this feel more fragile, more deliberate. Like she was stepping into something she couldn’t easily step out of again.
The door opened before she could knock.
“Good,” Matteo said, stepping aside. “I was worried you’d flake.”
She gave him a look. “I’m not a flake.”
“I know. But you look like one. Big-camera people always do.”
“I am not a big-camera person.”
He smirked and turned toward the kitchen. “You absolutely are.”
Cam followed him in, the scent of basil and toasted pine nuts already warming the air. A small wooden bowl on the counter held garlic cloves and salt. A mortar and pestle — old, marble, worn with use — sat waiting like a ritual tool.
“Alright,” he said, tossing her a faded linen apron. “Let’s see what you’re made of.”
Cam tied the apron around her waist and rolled up her sleeves. “Be gentle. I burn toast.”
“I’m not asking you to bake a soufflé. Just don’t kill the basil.”
She glanced at the bunch of fresh leaves on the cutting board. “Can basil die if you look at it wrong?”
“Yes. And it holds grudges.”
Matteo handed her a pestle. “Crush the garlic and salt first. Slowly. Let it talk to you.”
Cam snorted. “Are you always this intense in the kitchen?”
“Only with people I like.”
She glanced at him, trying not to smile. “And how many people make the list?”
Matteo didn’t answer. He only watched her with that quiet gaze again, the one that never rushed or begged. He seemed to collect moments the way she collected light.
Cam began grinding the garlic with the salt, and the kitchen fell into an easy rhythm. She liked the sound of it — the drag of wood on marble, the clink of metal bowls, the bubbling of the pasta pot behind them. Cooking, here, felt less like a task and more like storytelling.
“You said you had nowhere else to go,” she said suddenly, eyes still on the mortar.
Matteo paused. “I did.”
“I’m not asking to pry.”
“But you are.”
She met his gaze. “Yes.”
He gave her a long look. And then, maybe because the pesto needed time, maybe because something in her tone wasn’t threatening — he answered.
“My father died last year,” he said simply. “Heart. Fast. No warning.”
Cam stilled.
“I was in Milan. Working as a line cook in a French-fusion place that thought ‘authenticity’ meant plating food with tweezers.” His voice was dry. “I came back for the funeral. My mother was already gone. The café was flailing. So I stayed. At first for a week. Then a month. And now…”
“Now you’re basil’s guardian,” she offered.
A faint smile. “Now I don’t know who I am anywhere else.”
Cam turned back to the mortar, her motions gentler now. “You feel like a pause button got pressed.”
“Yes,” Matteo said softly. “And I’m afraid to hit play again.”
She said nothing, just added the basil leaves, one by one, and began crushing them with the pestle. The green fragrance bloomed between them.
“I wasn’t expecting you to understand,” he added after a while.
“I wasn’t expecting to, either.”
The pasta turned out slightly too firm, and Matteo called it “al dente with ambition.” They ate in the back courtyard, under an umbrella of grapevines, the late sun slicing through the leaves like gold through stained glass. It was too pretty to speak over.
When they were done, Cam lingered, half-curled in her chair, her sandals off. Matteo poured her the last splash of wine and tilted his head.
“So,” he said. “Do I get another secret?”
She considered. “You already know I deleted a whole exhibition.”
“That was a professional secret. I want something personal.”
Cam tilted her face toward the sun, eyes closed. The light painted her lashes gold.
“I was engaged,” she said.
Matteo didn’t respond right away.
“London,” she added. “Architect. His name was Theo. He had this impossible jawline and this way of making me feel like I was lucky to be tolerated.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It was. But also — normal. Safe. Expected. We had plans. A dog. Mortgage pre-approval. Matching neutral-toned furniture.”
“What happened?”
Cam smiled tightly. “I caught him sleeping with a woman who works in Scandinavian furniture imports.”
Matteo winced. “That’s… very specific.”
“She had opinions about ashwood grains,” Cam said flatly. “And a pelvic floor workshop side hustle.”
Matteo burst out laughing.
Cam shook her head. “It wasn’t funny then.”
“It’s kind of funny now.”
She leaned her head on her palm. “It’s weird. I wasn’t heartbroken. I was relieved. Like someone finally tore down a set I’d been performing on for too long.”
“Sounds like a prison break.”
“Exactly.”
They were quiet for a while. The kind of silence that didn’t need filling.
Then Matteo said, “You could’ve gone anywhere after that. Why here?”
Cam traced a knot in the wooden table with her finger.
“My mother brought me to Cinque Terre once when I was twelve,” she said. “I barely remember the trip. But I remember feeling… awake. Like everything was too bright and real to look away.”
She paused. “I wanted to find that feeling again.”
Matteo nodded. “Have you?”
Cam turned to look at him. “I think I’m closer now than I was yesterday.”
And something in his expression shifted — not a smile, not a frown. Just a deeper kind of attention, as though she’d become a puzzle piece he hadn’t realized he’d been missing.
He opened his mouth to speak.
But before he could, a sharp voice rang out from behind the gate.
“Matteo!”
They both turned.
A woman stood at the entrance to the courtyard, all legs and sharp edges. Blonde, tanned, in a crisp white dress that hadn’t wrinkled despite the heat. Her sunglasses were designer. Her tone? Not friendly.
“I’ve been calling you for three days,” she said, stepping inside without invitation. Her accent was unmistakably Milanese. Polished. Pressed. Like her.
Cam straightened.
Matteo stood slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Caterina.”
Caterina.
The name hit like a stone in Camilla’s chest.
“I need to talk to you,” Caterina said, glancing at Cam with a flick of mild curiosity, like someone spotting a misplaced painting in a gallery. “Privately.”
Matteo hesitated.
Cam rose, slow and deliberate. “I should go.”
“You don’t have to—” he started.
But Cam was already collecting her things, wrapping her camera strap around her hand like armor. “It’s fine.”
She didn’t look at Caterina again. She didn’t need to.
The woman’s presence was sharp enough to slice through anything warm that had existed between her and Matteo.
As she stepped into the street, the taste of basil still clinging to her tongue, Cam told herself it didn’t matter.
It was nothing. It had only just begun.
She was still whole. Still safe.
But the c***k in her chest said otherwise.
- Writer
