All Chapters of Second Time, Mrs. Ricciardi: Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

Seven p.m., and Lake Como looked like an expensive postcard that had been photographed to death. Deep blue, almost black. Villa lights scattered messily across the water. A thin veil of fog hovering low, like a cheap Instagram filter no one bothered to turn off.From the study window facing the lake, everything reduced itself to silhouettes. Water. Distant lights. And my own reflection in the glass.My hair was tied back neatly now. The Columbia T-shirt was gone, replaced by an oversized black hoodie. My laptop sat open, the screen crowded with lines of code and Raj’s sharp commentary from Boston.Raj: Can you PLEASE stop writing like you’re trying to flirt with the compiler, Ara?Raj: The function either works or it doesn’t. It doesn’t need to be sexy.I snorted softly, fingers still flying across the keyboard. “My compiler might not need sexy,” I muttered, eyes glued to the screen. “But my life does.”On the desk: two empty coffee mugs, yellow sticky notes scattered like casualties,

I woke up because the sun slapped me in the face. White-gold light speared through the thin curtains, landing directly on my eyelids that had never volunteered to become solar panels. I blinked slowly, trying to gather the pieces of my soul scattered across the sheets.The clock on the nightstand read 10:03.I stared at it for a long moment. My brain needed a few seconds to connect the facts.I.Woke up.At ten. A.m.Usually by six I was already up, sitting in the kitchen with coffee, staring at Lake Como or a bug on my screen. Now my whole body felt weighed down with concrete.I rolled slowly to the other side of the bed.The sheets were still warm. But the space beside me was empty. Rafael’s pillow was cold, no trace of the shape of his head. All that was left were creases in the sheets and the faint ghost of his cologne, tangled with something I did not want to define too clearly unless I wanted to throw up my feelings.His chest had been under my head last night. His hands… his mo