Later that night, she brought the wine.
A dusty bottle of Nero d'Avola she'd found in the cellar, the label half-peeled, the cork stubborn. She opened it with her teeth, eventually, and poured it into mismatched glasses she found in the cupboard—one chipped, one smeared slightly with dust she wiped on her sweater sleeve.
Milo was already outside, in his usual spot in the courtyard beneath the fig tree. The branches twisted above them like arthritic fingers, the leaves whispering secrets in the sea-wet wind.
They didn't speak at first.
The night buzzed around them—cicadas, waves below, the distant bark of a stray dog that never seemed to find what it was looking for.
They passed the bottle back and forth without ceremony, the kind of quiet between them not born of discomfort, but something older. Wearier.
Lina lit a cigarette and held it between her teeth like punctuation.
After a while, her voice broke the hush, low and hoarse. "Why did you stop taking pictures?"
Milo didn't answer immediately. He took a slow drink and let the silence stretch until it nearly frayed.
Then, finally: "Took the wrong one."
She watched him, eyes narrowed slightly, the cigarette forgotten between her fingers. "You want to tell me about it?"
He looked away, toward the dark sea. "There was a boy. Eight, maybe. Dust on his face. Holding his sister's hand like she was glass. They were walking through a minefield. Trying to get to the water."
She said nothing. Just listened.
"I took the shot," he continued, voice flatter now. "It was perfect. Right composition, light breaking over their shoulders like something holy. It won an award."
Lina swallowed, the wine sour on her tongue. "She didn't make it."
He nodded. "Two steps after the shutter clicked. Her brother kept walking. Didn't even turn around."
Lina inhaled sharply, the smoke catching. "Jesus."
"I told myself I was doing something noble," he said, quieter now. "That I was documenting the truth. Bringing awareness. All that journalistic bullshit."
She exhaled slowly, the smoke curling around her hair. "You blamed yourself."
He shrugged, but the movement was brittle. "Not right away. At first, I thought I had distance. Objectivity. Then I saw her mother—this woman who had survived war and famine and everything else the world threw at her—and she looked at me like I'd killed her daughter myself."
"Maybe you were just the messenger."
"Maybe." He picked at the corner of the label on the wine bottle. "But you don't forget the face of someone who lost everything while you held a camera."
Lina stubbed her cigarette out against the stone wall, her hand trembling just slightly. "Do you still have the photo?"
Milo paused. "Yeah. I keep it in a box. I never look at it."
She was quiet for a long time. Then, "Would you show it to me?"
He shook his head. "No. I think you've seen enough tragedy."
Lina gave a broken laugh. "Fair."
They sat again in the kind of silence that only comes when two people have said too much to say anything else.
The sky above them was ink, the stars flickering like old bulbs. She leaned back in the chair, her head tilted upward.
"Maybe we both have blood on our hands," she said finally.
Milo looked at her. "The difference is, you don't know whose."
That made her sit up straighter.
"I don't remember pushing him," she said. "I remember the argument. I remember shouting. I remember hating him in that moment. But after that—blank. A black hole."
He didn't speak.
"I woke up soaking wet. My hands were scraped. There was blood on my sleeve, but not his. Mine, I think. The boat had drifted into the rocks."
"Did anyone else see what happened?" he asked.
"No one. Not that night. Not until the police showed up. They said it looked like an accident, but the questions kept circling. The tone changed. They asked about our relationship. About control."
"Was it violent?" Milo asked gently.
"No," she said too quickly. Then again, quieter: "No. It was... ugly, sometimes. Verbal. Emotional. He had a way of making me feel like I was nothing without him. But no bruises. No screaming matches in public. Just... rot. Silent, invisible rot."
Milo nodded slowly. "That's still violence."
Lina pressed her fingertips to her temples. "I don't even know if I wanted to kill him. But some days, I wonder if the ocean did what I was too cowardly to."
"You think the ocean did you a favour?"
"I think," she said, looking down at her glass, "I've never felt relief and guilt bleed together so completely."
Milo drank. "That's the kind of grief that stains."
"I came here to remember," she whispered. "But what if remembering destroys me?"
He leaned forward, elbows on knees, eyes locked with hers. "Then maybe forgetting was your body trying to survive."
She blinked hard. "But someone wants me to remember."
He nodded. "Then we figure out who. Together."
She stared at him. "Why are you helping me?"
"Because I know what it feels like to carry a story that's too heavy for one person."
She swallowed, the lump in her throat sudden and hard. "You don't even like me."
"That's not true," he said quietly.
"No?"
Milo met her gaze. "I don't like your walls. But I like what's underneath."
She laughed through her nose. "Careful. I bite."
He offered her the bottle again. "Good. So do I."