painless, a needle in a doll / pietro+florentine

florentine. 

now that i think about it, i do think i overheard somebody mention his name. it was a week or so ago - we were in the tunnels, talking shit and musing on possible acts of covert rebellion. i overheard it. i'm usually listening to conversations that aren't much of my business, and this was no exception. it was some street rat kid, all bravado and tobacco and misplaced masculinity. i didn't believe him for a second, thought he was just making up fanciful stories to get attention. i certainly wasn't going to give him mine, absolutely wasn't going to grace him with the time of day required to press him for details. and yet -

pietro stands on the far bank of the river, real as anything. 

"me?" he says, like i might be talking to somebody behind him. there is nobody there. "hospital!" he shouts, as though that single word does much of anything to explain what has happened. the anger in my stomach twists and turns but does not fizzle out, not yet. there are plenty of reasons for hospitalisation for which rage is justified. i shelve mine, ready to clasp onto it if i need it. 

"where the fuck have you been?" he responds. i do not appreciate his humour, not today. 

since he has been gone, i haven't been far. just up and down and back and forth through the same city, along the same rivers and canals. i have slept beneath the same trees and boatsheds, or in the beds of a good handful of strangers, each of which was different, but each of which was all the same to me. i have attended eight parties, tried on four different names, and told countless lies. 

between the last time i saw pietro and today, i have been many different people, but unfortunately i am still the same old florentine he left behind, and i have nothing to show for it. luckily, i doubt he would have expected anything more from me. 

i think of the day at the academy with era, the night on the beach with adam. i think of waking up on the cold sand, heaving up sour liquor stolen from unconscious revellers. i shudder at the memory. 

"i've been looking for you!" i shout accusingly, although it is not entirely true. it is not quite a lie, either - sometimes i thought i saw him in the shadows beneath a bridge, or in a crowd of unfamiliar faces, and turned my head back to see.

when my mother was alive, she seemed to think that manners were an important factor in getting what you want. taking her advice for a change, i smooth my face out into a mask of concern (surely appropriate here) and offer something else to the boy on the far side of the water: "what the fuck happened?" 

and, then, gathering every ounce of empathy i possess, "are you okay?" 

i slip off both my shoes and abandon them on the shore, hitch up my dress and wade into the water until it reaches my knees. i am closer now; we will not need to shout to be heard.