The next morning, Florence awoke in soft gold.
Light spilled like honey across shuttered windows.
Pigeons fluttered beneath flaking frescoes.
A milk cart rumbled down a narrow street, its wheels squeaking softly over uneven stones.
Somewhere, a church bell rang—not sharp, but slow, as if reluctant to disturb the morning.
The Arno River stretched out beneath a sky so clear, so untroubled, that Elisa almost didn't trust it.
It felt too good.
Too still.
Like a painting right before the storm rolls in.
But she followed the river anyway—its gentle curve, its shimmering quiet—until she reached the Ponte Vecchio.
He was exactly where he said he'd be.
Under a faded yellow awning that had seen better decades, wedged between two jewelry shops that looked more like museums than storefronts. Their windows hadn't changed in years: velvet displays, gold chains coiled like sleeping snakes, ruby rings that caught the sun like secrets.
And there... against all of that glittering stillness... stood Rafael.
Sketchpad in hand.
Brush tucked behind one ear.
A folded stool leaning against his ankle like a loyal dog.
---
Elisa didn't speak right away.
She stood on the far side of the bridge, hidden by the edge of a souvenir cart, and watched.
He wasn't drawing the bridge.
Not the architecture. Not the arches. Not the river.
He was drawing people.
Tourists snapping photos.
Locals rushing to work.
A couple arguing in rapid Italian.
An old man feeding pigeons with his eyes closed.
Quick, sure strokes.
Capturing the in-between moments. The flickers. The gestures that happened and vanished in the time it took to blink.
There was nothing static about his drawings.
They breathed.
She stepped closer, quietly.
When he noticed her, he didn't startle.
Didn't smirk.
Just shifted slightly to the left, nudging the stool with his foot.
"Sit," he said, like it wasn't even a suggestion.
She raised an eyebrow.
"You want to draw me?"
"Only if you don't smile."
"I wasn't planning to."
He gave a small nod.
"Perfect."
---
She sat stiffly.
Crossed one leg over the other.
Folded her arms.
Her expression hovered somewhere between suspicion and exhaustion.
The breeze tugged gently at her coat. It carried the scent of espresso and iron and worn stone. Below, the river murmured, calm and ancient.
Rafael studied her.
Longer than she liked.
His eyes weren't invasive—but they were steady.
She felt like he was sketching her even before he picked up the pencil.
"…What?" she finally asked.
"You have the kind of stillness people mistake for peace."
She blinked.
"And it's not peace?"
He tilted his head.
"It's the quiet before thunder."
And then he started to draw.
---
Fifteen minutes passed.
Then twenty.
Then thirty.
Elisa didn't move. Not much.
Except for her fingers, which kept brushing the edge of her coat—where the weight of her mother's sketchbook pressed against her ribs like an unread letter.
She kept thinking of the moment she first saw Rafael at the Duomo.
And the moment he saw her.
Not just her face.
But her.
Finally, Rafael lowered the pencil with a sigh.
His shoulders slumped. Not in frustration—something more like defeat.
He ripped the page.
"You gave up?"
He shook his head, eyes distant.
"You can't be drawn."
She stared.
"That's a terrible pickup line."
A ghost of a smile.
"It's not a line. It's a truth."
He held up the sketch—a maze of incomplete strokes. Shadowed curves, interrupted lines, a faint silhouette trying to emerge and never quite making it.
"I tried your jawline. Your posture. Your eyes. But nothing held. You're not a portrait."
Elisa stood, brushing off the hem of her coat.
He added, voice quieter:
"You're a storm. And storms don't sit still."
---
They walked the edge of the river afterward.
Not together, exactly. Just in parallel.
Close enough to hear each other breathe, far enough that the silence had space to stretch its limbs.
They passed musicians, tourists, lovers locked in summer romance.
Elisa kept her gaze on the river, following the shimmer of light on the surface like it might spell something.
Finally, she said, "You shouldn't romanticize what you don't understand."
"I'm not romanticizing."
She glanced sideways.
"Then what are you doing?"
He answered without hesitation.
"Struggling."
"With what?"
"With the fact that something in you refuses to stay flat on paper."
She didn't know what to say to that.
It sounded like too much.
And not enough.
So she stopped walking.
And so did he.
Rafael reached into his coat.
Pulled out a folded sheet of paper.
Old. Creased at the edges.
He unfolded it carefully, like it mattered.
A line sketch.
A girl.
Seated.
Alone.
Arms wrapped around something held tight against her chest.
Head bowed. Shoulders tense.
No face.
Just posture.
Emotion caught in outline.
"I saw you at the airport," he said quietly.
"Sydney terminal. I was flying in from Jakarta. You were sitting by Gate B13, holding that sketchbook like it was the only thing keeping you upright."
Elisa's breath caught.
"…You remember that?"
"I sketched it."
He handed her the page.
It was the moment before her flight.
Before the final boarding call.
Before anything began.
The paper smelled faintly of graphite and sun.
And the silence of airports.
She stared at it for a long time.
And then—softly, painfully—
"You didn't draw my face."
"No."
A pause.
"Because I hadn't seen it yet."
---
Her fingers curled around the edges of the page.
The lines blurred slightly, not from the pencil… but from her eyes.
She didn't look at him.
She couldn't.
Not yet.
But she didn't walk away, either.
---
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She let it ring once… twice.
Then finally pulled it out and read the screen.
____________•••____________
One Plus
You are one plus away from becoming visible to someone who already sees you.
____________•••____________