Promises

To the other side of me ... my alter ego.

A glimpse at how you'd have perhaps been if ...

Chapter 1

As around the sun the Earth knows she's revolving

And the rosebuds know to bloom in early May

Just as hate knows love's the cure

You can rest your mind assured

That I'll be loving you always

Until the rainbow burns the stars out in the sky (ALWAYS)

Until the ocean covers every mountain high (ALWAYS)

Until the day that 8x8x8 is 4 (ALWAYS)

Until the day that is the day that are no more

Davide

"Oh! Look at this..." I shouted suddenly, breaking the silence inside the quiet kitchen of my house.
I had started browsing through my old diaries because I needed the address and phone number of a friend of mine... a dear friend, who lived in Genoa... at least, she used to live there a few years earlier. We had not had a chance to meet or talk for long time, but we had been friends for long and for many years we had been in close touch.
I could not wait to announce her that I was going to get married in four months!
But I did not expect to find that dedication from Davide among those pages: how sweet... Strange, I was pretty sure that I had collected all his sentences, his poems, his greeting cards in a... yes, in a photo-album, which I was going to complete with our photos from the wedding.
Sometimes I have strange ideas... yeah, many people do tell me that.
But there was an explanation: Davide’s words are the thing that most fascinated me about him... more than physical aspect or his eyes... Well, his green eyes really made me - and still do - a very strange effect each time I look at them, because they change from light green to emerald without a precise logic. It 's quite rare that I can stay steady when he stares at me... perhaps only when we fight I feel partially immune from his eyes.
Evidently that dedication had stayed there for some inexplicable reason. Or, perhaps, rethinking about it, there was a quite simple reason: I hate recycled dedications! That is, mind you: those words from that song are stunning and, in our case they have a very special value because, besides being the song from the times when we started dating, now that we decided to get married it was back again very popular on the radio, and I think it’s because some young singer made a cover.
But... Davide was able to write so many beautiful things also by himself. In that photo album I mentioned earlier, there are a number of poems and sentences that make me melt every time I read them.
This one had to be the reason why the dedication à la Stevie Wonder had been left aside... perhaps... but thinking about it... it would also have deserved to fit in "Davide’s" dossier.
"Yeah, I think I will make him this further favour..." I said to myself, smiling. "Oh, that guy will never realize how lucky he was to meet me!"
So I got up and went to that drawer in my room where all those fragments of my past... diaries, souvenirs, gifts... were stored. Well, Davide would have said "buried"... he was always laughing at me because of the mess that, in his opinion, used to reign and always did in my house.
Of course, partly he was right... I had never been a house-order freak, perhaps because of some intolerance against my family and my mother who always tried to instil a range of values concerning how to be a good wife... and even less I was organized about storing and arranging my stuff... If I were to compare myself with him, I would have been clearly outclassed, because Davide’s mental and material order was something never seen before.
However, especially after I got to know him a bit better, I realized that I could at least get closer to him.
- So, well, I’m not making so much mess... considering that I’m a woman, I mean, I'm not so bad - I told him one day, and he said I was right. Maybe because we were already going out together? No, I don’t think so... but then, it doesn’t matter... Sometimes I find it more serious the fact that all those moral values I was instilled by my family... by my mom... now, that we are in sight of our marriage, I feel they’re much more important to me.
Yeah... maybe it’s because of love...

For first, I pulled the photo-album from the drawer... and as always, I sighed thinking that soon it would’ve played the role for which it was designed.
I inserted yet another piece of paper, trying to respect the vaguely chronological order.
Then I took out some boxes, those shaped like gift packages: they were probably filled with... I do not know, at the time I could not imagine exactly what was inside... I vowed to bring back the case one of the following days.
So I reached my diaries, while deepening the search for that phone number.
Monica Gattico, IIB
Crazy... Sometimes I couldn’t even remember that I still had, in addition to informal diaries from the later years, my old school diaries, so colourful, some even scented! It had been one of my classmates, I think in third or fourth high school class, who had taught me to put a few drops of perfume on the most important pages... and, I must say, it could still be felt...
How immediate and strong is the feeling that a perfume can bring you... In a few moments I quickly browsed through the pages of one of those booklets and smiled: I could remember the faces of my classmates... Yes, it had to be the third class, our trip to Rome, Simona, Silvia... Francesco. I smiled again, thinking "so long ago!"
I closed those pages, and went on extracting agendas, until the floor of my room was completely covered. At that point I felt obliged to clean the inside of the drawer: it was a typical case of a drawer that was always accumulating dust, and that you'd never want to clean because it would take half an hour just to empty it, and moreover it was very heavy... Once upon a time, when I was living with my parents, I remember that all of that stuff used to sit in a box placed on a very high shelf... well, yes, I'm not exactly a tall girl... however, probably because of those shoes that I was wearing that day, I was going to slip off the ladder and it all nearly fell over me...
My dad had come in time to save me, luckily! My dad, yeah... remembering what had happened, later I decided it would have been better to arrange those things in a more accessible place.

I sprayed some cleaner, then I turned back to white the inner of the drawer and, since I was there, I also used some cleaner at the diaries covers.
Then I started putting back the diaries from the oldest years and the several pen cases, and in the end I set apart – for carrying them to the kitchen soon later - only those which dealt with the latest six years... Damn, every time I thought about how long it had been since I had met Davide, I was amazed: sometimes I was amazed because I thought they were only two or three years; sometimes, however, it looked like more... I believe it used to depend on the fact that our relationship had had a very long gestation.
So I went back to the kitchen and ...
It had taken me three laps to carry around all the heavy stuff, and suddenly I realized that it was very late!
Within a quarter of an hour Davide would have come to take me to dinner... and I still had to get ready for the evening!
Fortunately he always arrives a bit late... I mean, usually I say that it’s not a good thing: I've got to keep a small position of my female advantage in everyday routine...
My friend Irene would have had to wait: I could go on looking for her phone number only the next day.

 Chapter 2

The morning after I began to face the "diaries" issue. I woke up at a good pace, I had a quick but complete breakfast...
The night had brought me good advice... and not just it, to be honest.
I had made up my mind in that I would have browsed through every single page of those collections, ever since... at least ten years in the past, because I was almost to change my life, I was going to do something that would have changed my life dramatically, and... basically I wanted to make a roundup... a rundown on what had been my life up until then, in order to be able to look to the future with serenity.
A future which, basically, would have meant having a child. And I needed to be really calm, since the other half of me was not very much convinced, about that idea.

Davide had been, anyway, the other element that had led me to make the decision to take a retrospective look at my life. The evening before I had, in fact, made the mistake of leaving around that swag of memories and he, entering into my house, had immediately noticed them.
I knew it would have been a mistake: Davide was always worried about my habit of writing down and telling my life word by word, day after day...
More than worried, he was like scared, intrigued. Yet I had never been hiding anything... neither at beginning, when we hardly knew ourselves, nor in the following years, let alone when we were dating. And then, it had been only thanks to him if, at some point of my life, I had rediscovered the joy of living that, for a while, I had been thinking it was lost forever: Davide knew everything about me... ever since.
And yet... like a form of jealousy hard to eradicate, even though he was not that kind of guy... every time we touched that subject, sparks were going to show, so strong that I was really worried about where I could fit that drawer once we had moved to living together. I had already thought about taking a safe deposit box in the bank!
I knew so well then, that letting Davide see me busy browsing through those diaries would have, at least partially, ruined our evening... but I had really had no time to remove them.
I had taken a shower, I had dried myself in a hurry, then I was running to get dressed and... you know when everything looks so bad and out of place over you? The skirt that I was going to wear seemed to have changed... it had turned to a strange colour and no pair of stockings seemed to fit... another skirt was crumpled because... it had been left hanging in the wrong way onto a chair for who-knows-how-long. I did not feel like wearing trousers, so, after a few more attempts, I found a plausible combination. Then, when I was putting on my makeup, Davide had been ringing the doorbell, and so I had not been able to even distract him from the target that his eyes had immediately spotted.
Only later I had realized, that the fact that I could not find anything that I liked to wear was a veiled hint from fate: I should have welcomed him in my bra and panties... so maybe I would have gained some time...
Perhaps, sure… how crazy at first I even thought he was gay... or at least somewhat strange.

* * *

In 1992 I was dating Giuseppe. Well, let's see... I went out with Giuseppe for a bit more than two years.
I was twenty-two years old when I met him at a party... one of those college parties that, according to my personal experience, must be considered responsible for breaking an amazing amount of female hearts, as well as creating risks of unwanted pregnancies to a number of girls unaware they were facing improbable engineers... whose experience with women was much lower than their ability in applying the practical concepts that they were studying at school... which is saying something!
Incidentally, I didn’t fall into any of either category.
At the times I was working, somewhat satisfacted, in one of the supermarkets that had recently opened in the close surroundings of Turin. I had finished my high school courses a couple of years earlier and, after giving some trivial reps of English language (as far as my diploma in business studies would allow me) and having been wandering in indecision between continuing my studies or looking for a job... in the end I had come to the conclusion that I could not just "get married, possibly a wealthy guy, and be a housewife" like my mother and several of her friends had in mind.
So I had accepted that supermarket job, not without some criticism from my mom. In fact it was a bit far from my house, since I lived almost in the center of the town, and then it was also a bit reductive to me: I had started with the goal of being a secretary or accountant, and soon I was over at the checkout. Yes, I was very young and I was sure that in that place or another one I would have done something more rewarding, in the future, though...
And I didn’t really feel like going on studying, even if learning new things was something I did not mind, rather the opposite... In the middle and high school I had always been paying attention, and disciplined and studious. I was doing pretty well in all subjects... yeah, actually I devoted lot of time to studying, and my parents were always there to help me. They were getting perfectly into the part: it was like having two masters, indeed, two professors, at my house, just for me!
My mother, who at the time was teaching at a middle school (now she’s retired), was very passionate about science and physics as a new Marie Curie and was always trying to convince me to go the path of scientific studies; instead my father, on paper just a simple clerk, he had always pushed me to... reading classic books, novels, English authors, German authors, Irish ones, the '500s, the '800s, contemporary. Except when it was my birthday, when he always managed to get something original, any other occasion was good to give me a book as a gift.
But... it was probably because of some sense of saturation that, as I reached fifteen or sixteen, I felt a burning desire to change.
It’s kinda common to believe that it's more a prerogative of the boys, to try and turn the world upside down, and the family and their lives too, as they get to puberty: well, something similar actually happened to me too, but without fights or disputes whatsoever. As I slowly got to know the world, I realized that there were other important things in life, and that, in order to live them, since a day is still made up of twenty-four hours… you had to give up on something.

It had to be said that, to make this transition less critical, both me and my parents contributed a lot. I would never stop dead... I mean, almost never... and slowly I was able to carve out my own space within my home, within my life, which started to get filled up with friends, dreams, discos and pubs... where I would go more in the evening than in the night... and, on the other hand, my parents quickly adapted to the changes.
My mom moved with quite remarkable practical sense from the mother-daughter relationship to the woman-woman... Well, woman... to the extent that now, at the ripe age of thirty, I can easily see and judge properly... and my dad proved a perfect tightrope, trying not to be a gruff and strict mentor, but at the same time able to advise and warn me from things that could hurt me.
I will always remember that time, as I was about to leave for Paris, in my fifth class, he gave me a succinct though precise picture of the situation.
"Come on, Monica, we must run quickly to the station otherwise you won’t arrive on time for your holiday trip where, for sure, you will lose your wallet, documents, liver and virginity... well, but if you miss the train, you won’t miss all the rest..."
And meanwhile my mother was looking at us with a smile, though showing some vague concern.

I have to say that, unlike other friends of mine, I did not get through all of those experiences... so to speak broadly... that many others live at that age... I kept on repeating myself that going step by step, without shocking my family nor myself, would have been the best thing: surely it would have come a time for living things belonging to the grown up, at the right time, with no hurry and...
Actually, the way and the times at which those experiences... the great group of friends, crazy nights at the disco, the love that makes you lose your head... did come to me, years later, would have been much more bloody and painful than what, perhaps, could have been if they all had happened at the age... yes, the average age at which girls... people live all of this.

But let's move on.
The thing that makes me smile more about those high school years is the manic bound that we developed for backpacks, pen holder cases...
How much I was yelling at my mom... well, our mothers actually, Simona and me: everytime one of us was seeing something nice on TV or maybe on the bench of another classmate, she would ran to tell about it to the other one and automatically the very same afternoon or the next day we were in search of the store where it could be bought.
We put a strain on our limited young girls’ wages. That is, the problem was not so much a problem about money: our families were not made of money, but they could vaguely be considered wealthy (Davide would hate this word quite a lot!) ...rather the fact that we were very single-issued in what was driving our passions.
In fact our mothers were fully sympathetic with regard to the fact that... yes, in short, that at that age you fill your head with idols, you would follow any kind of fashion, we wanted to be identified in some way... Only, they struggled to understand that culture of fashion jeans, of backpack brands identical to those you could find in the street market but "more cool"... and found it hard to get into our bedrooms and find out this new type of wallpaper made of singers’ and rock bands posters! Although, I have to report, my mother often did express appreciation about the beauty of certain… beautiful guys!
No, I am thirty now... I should not use that language... I just hope that when my son (or daughter) will be that old, I will not forget how I felt when I was sixteen.
The problem lied therefore, essentially, in the different way in which we (I think I can speak more or less also on behalf of my peers) used to show those feelings of ours. My mother would have been much happier to see me dressed "like a lady", as they called it... she would have taken me wherever I wanted, if I were to buy shoes with heels, serious clothes, long or short it’d not matter... but instead we were running from this all, it looked like we wanted to surround ourselves mostly with objects, virtual myths... yes, at the time they did not use that word, but it’s fitting enough.
Even the boys, I think, they were seeing themselves in a similar way: some kind of fear about facing their role... who knows where I heard this beautiful definition! And, if I were to express my opinion, I’d say that the trend has been growing further, along with the new generations.

I used to dream of falling in love, I was feeling deeply attracted by some guys on TV or from the music world, but in no way I could conceive the idea of staying together, from a physical point of view, with a boy. Perhaps it was for that very reason, that we were always dressed like tomboys, with sober tracksuits or those fashion jeans. I remember that Simona shared my feelings, exactly... Now that I think about it, I'd like to meet her again and ask if, still now, she sees things like I do: for quite a while we kept in touch, then... now I think it has been four years since she got married... yeah, she was as old as me and then... Well, since that day, that farewell hen when I did not get much fun, because of my personal problems, we have met only twice, in a rather quick manner.
I must really give her a call! We vowed to never turn away from each other...

However, possibly due to a twist of fate... the first time I kissed a man I was dressing really great.
Man... well, if one could call Francesco like this.
Undoubtedly the fact that I had shown up to him wearing such a dress, at the birthday party, must have brought a bit of clarity in his confused mind...
Six months had passed, I think... since our trip to Rome... yes, because it was autumn. We had been classmates ever since the second class, I'm sure about that because I remember that in the first year he was not with us... although I can not recall much of the second year. In the third class, I recall that some sympathy sparkled, based on… nothing, if I think about how I was seeing and judging the boys at the time!
I am not sure... we were meeting before entering the class, then at the mid-break... he would generally tell a few jokes at me and Simona, usually due to the fact that we were always together. Among all the guys who were coming around us... oh my God, what did I say! No, we were neither particularly pretty or flashy nor ugly... quite normal, that's it... I meant that he seemed to be a bit closer to us than our other friends. He was one of those guys that you could hardly identify: we did not understand if he was more interested in me or my friend, he did not seem to be part of any special group of friends, he did not live on the side of the city from which most of the students came and therefore it was unlikely to meet him on the bus.
It was possibly this aura of mystery that somehow intrigued me, because for the rest I did not like him particularly.
But during that trip it looked like something new was born... from his side, at least. He was always spending time with us, who made up a group of girls in numbers ranging from two to five, together to some other classmates... no, what did I just say, how could I forget... Simona was going crazy about that guy from the other fourth class and so we were often together with his circle of friends.
And Francesco used to come to us, to talk to me, he was walking next to me... I was feeling fine when he was there though, if I had to recall what we were talking about, I wouldn’t be able to...
We were back home after five days and... every time I was listening to that song from Spandau I could see his face again and I was feeling happy. It had to be… the same for him, because for a few days he kept on calling me... I was glad to hear from him but terrified that he asked me to go out alone with him... it wasn’t just that, but also the point that, I am not sure, in our town... Boh!
In fact I tried only once, mostly spurred by my friends... and after some time our relation become as cold as before.
I felt a little bad... not too much actually: it is true, the attention he was having for me... feeling him close and caring was nice, but did not seem to prove anything more... and then, optimistic as always, I was sure that my time for being happy was yet to come... and at the proper moment I would have realized that.
But, in the months that followed, during that summer, I could spot that Francesco really had something special, that could not be found in the other guys: it must be for that reason that I welcomed with undisguised enthusiasm the idea of going to that party.
It was one of the rare occasions when me and Simona dressed in a completely fashion style: it had been her idea, to "introduce myself as a princess among us other poor servants", as she said, of course in agreement with my mom, in those days that preceded that fateful Saturday afternoon. She was convinced that between me and Francesco there did exist deep feelings ready to explode and that a little provocation would make this love bloom.
"You're too shy, and looks like you are acting coy..." she always told me at the time, without imagining that, once the school days were over, it would have been me to tell her the same comment.
I spent three hours in front of the mirror, that Saturday, just as I arrived home from school... The chosen outfit, bought only a few weeks before, had no sleeves but only straps, and I was not used to that... Those breast I used to feel quite proud of, when I was dressing in my little room, in that context became flashy enough to collide with... the girl that I felt I was inside of me. And then, my legs were too skinny, I was feeling terribly uncomfortable with that flounced skirt that, as I stood up on my feet, ended well before the knee... those stockings were so veiled that they looked like breaking at the slightest touch...
"Do not worry, his hands look very delicate..." Simona told me, making sure my mom was not around, but that did not save her from my glare!
But... as I overcome all of these obstacles, I managed to get to the disco and to have some fun. One hour or two went away and me and my friends were dancing in a quiet corner of the dance floor... every ten minutes or so Simona was pointing out that someone was staring at me, but me, living my teenage movie, I was keeping an eye on Francesco and waiting, inside of me, that he came and rescue me.
And indeed he arrived.
We had just eaten a cake along with the birthday people and we were going back to dance, as he slipped from behind between me and Simona: I noticed at the same time my friend move away and Francesco's hand lean on my shoulder. I tried to ignore that shiver of terror that had travelled through me at that time, and began to talk to him as peacefully as possible. I would not have bet on it... but the discomfort slowly passed on, his words made me feel good like and even more than when we were walking in the school trip... I don’t remember anything of what he said, except a few vague compliments about my look that for him too had to be quite new and improvised. And then they played the cheek-to-cheek songs... ah! This institution of my childhood which now has gone disappearing helped me in at least three crucial moments and, according to my male friends, it was very useful for them as well.
I'm sure that if I could see me again while I was dancing with him I would find myself terribly ridiculous... but in that moment, while his face was close to mine and his hands gently clasped my waist to his, I felt that everything was fine.
We split apart only for a short moment, from there until leaving the nightclub, just to put on our coats... and to try and arrange together with Simona a way not to let her go back home by herself, and not to abandon Francesco. We walked for quite a while... actually, no, what am I saying, we went pretty much walking from the disco to my home, all the time embraced... then we said goodbye... I mean, we tried to greet for at least ten minutes... and finally Francesco walked away toward the bus stop.
If the expression of my face were not, by chance, enough to show how I was feeling... and it was, judging by how my parents spoke to me and looked at me that evening... the fact that I wanted no longer put that dress off helped to enforce the idea! It was at that moment, that I realized how big miracles some appealing femininity could do...

However, despite these fairytale-like premises that, I'm sure, were reciprocated by my Francesco... our history lasted less than three months.
I know that many of my friends who would comment those memories with a simple "we were too young...", but I... I do not know, sometimes I think about it, and I thought about it, and I wondered why... I tried to remember what we rehearsed, who we were at that age... and sometimes it proved useful, perhaps to better deal with certain situations... I have to thank Davide for this: he was my psychoanalyst.
After two and a half months, actually, it was decided by mutual agreement that our feelings were not strong enough, one’s for the other one, to be allowed to call it love (!) ... Then, after a week, we felt so... oddly useless, that we tried to meet again, together with all the other friends... but this was fatal. We had been watching from afar, keeping us in touch through our eyes, but then... I was fine with my friends, my girlfriends and he, it seemed, was fine too... in another group. When I saw him going to the pub counter arm-in-arm to another girl, I suddenly realized that I could have done the same thing myself, without remorse, and that therefore there was nothing to justify the fact that he and I would go out together.
With the eyes of then.
A couple of similar stories happened again in the following school years though, in the period of time preceding the maturity, I concentrated most efforts towards the exam.
I tried to return my parents the confidence they had placed into me, always letting me do what I felt, and in the end I got home with a 54 which did satisfy them fully... I mean, that's what they always told me, but I felt a little guilty because maybe I could have done something more.
Yeah... But, in fact, life was made of something else, too.
I went on vacation with my girlfriends, I enrolled at the gym...

* * *

And so we’re back to Giuseppe.

For sure, the colourful diaries from high school emit an irreplaceable charm! These calendars so... sponsored, covered with this kind of real-fake-leather are so anonymous... On the other hand, I remember that the last time I went out to buy a school diary I was twenty-three or twenty-four years old and I tried my best in telling the most unbelievable excuses...
"You know, it's for my little sister and..."
"No, I don’t go to college... I just look older than I really am, everybody says that...", the one time a rude cashier asked me how brave I were to enter the university equipped with that diary full of little dolls.
"It's for my daughter who..."
No, I did never say this lie, actually... it was too hard to believe!
The only advantage that this agenda from '92 featured, was the larger size, which allowed me to stick over it many more things than usual: for example... look at this, there it is the first paycheck from the supermarket, and if I remember correctly there should also be more of them... ah, and also the "societary" pictures of leaders and employees... Yeah, and there's Carmen too, of course.

I began attending the college parties thanks to... well, it is not important to explain, because anyway everyone among us did go to one of those parties at least once in their lives, invited by a friend or a relative or an acquaintance (we all have one)! In fact, every few times, on a regular basis, you met someone you already knew even though in theory you had nothing to share in that circumstance. In our case (me and Simona), it was Anna, another of our classmates, who had enrolled in medicine course and, after a few months of adaptation, had started going out with her faculty friends.
In a short time a fairly large group had built up, into which Simona and I landed about... well, yes, it must have been in 89... wait, let me go check... yes, here it is: Friday, October 20, 1989... "Met Anna’s friends."
There are no more comments, how strange... Ah, yes, but Giuseppe wasn’t there that night.

And earlier? What kind of relationships had I enjoyed in those two years following the maturity?
Wait... Well, I made two remarkable travels: one immediately after the final exam and then the inter-rail together with Roberto and that other couple... those friends... mmmm, it should be stated, somewhere, but it's not that important to me... ah, here, yeah: Carla and Paolo... and yes, it's true... they are among these pages too, because we went on to meet until Roberto and me gave up.
The holiday-as-a-prize, an institution so pleasing for our parents turned out in the end as a very pleasant experience to me and Simona too. In our dreams, it would have been the best if we had been able to go on our own, just the two of us, alone... but there were a thousand good reasons why this was not possible: so our parents brought us to London for two weeks and it was a wonderful holiday.
The airplane... a foreign country... being so far away from home... the stalls, the pubs... all that colour was really fascinating. I remember that we were leaving in the morning all together and then we went around to do some serious and learning visit... All of this was mandatory according to my parents... and I must say that the National Gallery got a special place in my heart. Then, after lunch, me and my friend were going on our own and then the incredible situations, laughters, fools were not to be counted. Simona could not utter a single word in English, much less understand what people replied her! In the beginning I held back, but then I began to make jokes at her all the time, even in front of our parents... I felt a little guilty, but I couldn’t stop laughing if only it crossed my eyes the image of her faltering as she tried to assemble a meaningful sentence.
I believe she hated me a little bit... but nothing too serious. And then she would always manage to take her revenge, when it came to get in touch with guys.
I was still shy... No, not exactly timid: I was much at ease around people... when I was out among my friends I used to have a world of fun... well, me and Simona were like two sisters, but I was feeling very well with all the people that I was meeting and I think they were sharing this feeling too.
But... when it came to the boys... every time I felt that that some guy was interested in me, or when I realized that I began to feel someone in a particular way, then I was stuck.
I started behaving in a strange way... I was no longer myself... just the thought of meeting that person again did frighten me, so maybe I preferred not to go out, because if I did then I would end up completely speechless as he talked to me.
And... in the rare occasions when I could overcome this obstacle, I was never calm enough. For the first two weeks I fantasized about love, the magic moment that I was living... then I began to wonder if I was acting in the right way, if I should have felt more involved, if my guy was the right one for me...
And, how much did Simona enjoy finding the guys she knew that I would have liked, and then leaving me alone with one of them and have fun watching me from afar!
But of course she was not doing that with malice.
- Come on, you'll see that when you find the right one, everything will come easily by itself and you will have no fear...
- Yes, of course... - I replied... it was exactly what I had always thought... and yet there were times when I fell a little depressed.
Yet, things went slowly improving...

In fact, I definitely felt more comfortable with Roberto.
Going on holidays together... I seem to remember that we had been dating at least for six months, when we decided this trip.
I wanted to return to London whatever the price... it had been two years, but I remember the taste of those memories had stayed inside of me with an incredible sweetness. Yeah... but why Simona was not with us? Ah... now I remember! The damn chicken pox!
She got it between May and June... I remember that we were a bit frightened ‘cause, when you take it as a grown up it could hurt you a lot... And of course Roberto (that stupid) had not gotten it when he was a boy and therefore he had no will to share our vacation with her... Forty days... even some more... I don’t know if they met again after she was cured, given that me and Roberto gave up by the end of August.
Well, Simona didn’t lose much... she never liked Roberto, and was surprised that I did.
Yeah ... apparently we seemed to be really in love. We always went out together, often we avoided going out with the other friends just to be alone... we used to walk for hours in the park. Much of my shyness was finally going away, and with him I had far fewer doubts, much less insecurity.
- There is something you're not telling me, and instead you should tell to your best friend...
But Simona was wrong. No particular step had been taken from the point of view... yes, concerning going to bed together: I was not hiding anything... Would you imagine... it would have taken a little more... years, at which time we would have had a long talk.
Perhaps somebody should also ask Roberto about his thoughts... well, now for sure I don’t care at all, but... I remember that at that time we had been discussing that, here and there... My God, this is another of those cases when it looks likes centuries have flown!
Anyway, we had no chance whatsoever: we were too young to go away together... sometimes my parents would leave for a few days but... how funny! We barely would strip naked to the waist! Or rather, I let him take off a whole bunch of clothes but definitely avoided doing the same to him.
I was, from that point of view, still very reserved. I used to embrace him, hug him and I loved that and it was enough to me: but the compliments he was always doing to me, the way he appreciated my body went gradually bringing a greater security of myself.

The reasons why we gave up as we got back from those holidays, are quite far away from the scope of physical attraction.
I hated quite a lot that he did not appreciate anything in my world, except me. My friend Simona, my circle of friends... well, he had a somewhat good relationship with my parents and it was returned... But I could not stand the fact that he would decide upon everything...
Oh, and of course he did not appreciate my job as a clerk.
Probably, had I not met all of Anna’s friends, that Friday night and if I had not, soon after, met Giuseppe, maybe we and Roberto would have been back together.
And, on the other hand, with them I felt really good from the start.
They came at the right time: I had spent two months feeling a bit sad, I was not going out much, partly because I did not want and partly because I had moved away from old friends and with the only exception of Simona, I did not have many contacts left.
They were not many... just two or three couples and some boys and some girls. But they were all nice and me and Simona felt immediately gratefully accepted by everyone.
All of them were the college-type, you could tell it right away. Not in a negative meaning... you could simply understand that they liked studying, they liked the things they were learning, and they (very) often talked about that. Even from this point of view I felt good with them, after the months spent with Roberto and, given that in my job I could not say I was growing (from a cultural standpoint), I was pleased that I could have some more serious discussion with them.
That famous topic about… getting graduated too... Let me think, then, so many years slipped away since Davide started reproaching me about this matter... and I have not yet decided. And, to be honest, I do not think I will have time in the future!

We met them again on Saturday night, and then we began to meet regularly... On New Year’s eve we were all together in the mountain house belonging to one of those girls, I think her name was Cristina… For my birthday Simona set up with them a little surprise party: she even managed to scare me, that wretch! I don’t remember exactly which funny tale she had created in order to keep me in the dark... and I had believed her in a quite silly manner. Yeah, when you trust someone blindly... I'm glad to say that I have never felt betrayed by her... and the opposite has never happened too.
Ah, yes ... but it was exactly in same New Year eve that I met Irene, my friend... She was a friend of the house owner and lived in Genoa...
A real nice girl, she seemed somewhat too hilarious, so much that at first I considered her a bit dumb. But later, as the hours passed, when small groups started to grow spontaneously, we crossed our paths by chance as we were going to take some chips... or maybe popcorn, I can’t remember... and we started chatting. She made a quick report of her life and then asked me questions about mine...
At first I had to add, to the label that I had attached over her head some pedantic gossipy... What a fool! Now that I think about that, at some point I laughed alone and I could not stop... I left her for a moment and went to Simona, not far away, with the trivial excuse of asking her a tissue, but I actually wanted to tell her this great joke...
-... I will call her Irene P.P., so at the same time I will remember that it she is heavy and gossipy and... (Pesante e Pettegola, hence the joke in italian, ndr)
- Didn’t you say pedantic, some minutes ago?
- Whatever, it’s the same... I said, Irene P.P. which also reminds of Porta Principe, like the station in Genoa, so I remember where he lives...
Simona looked at me shocked... and I could not stop laughing.
She brought me a glass of water and after a while, finally, I recovered. As my friend accompanied me to the bathroom I told her about my conversation with that girl, and then she laughed.
I returned where I had left Irene and I found her still there... and I was very concerned about the way our conversation could have evolved.
But, strangely, and slowly... the arguments became more interesting... her continuos talk did no longer look like a sterile talk, just to chat and get to know other people’s matters, but rather a kind of shyness that could be overcome by attacking the others with this river of words.
Of course we exchanged our phone numbers and began to get in touch quite regularly. I must say that everytime I met her again later on I was pleased, and I never had the feeling that she was stupid, but... we became two good friends.
Oh, and…, then there was that time... hmmm, I can not remember exactly when, but somewhere in these diaries should be mentioned...

And then it was a day in March, when I met Giuseppe.
I immediately noticed a difference in him, compared to all the other guys I had met in that group: I liked him.
From a mental point of view, his nature, he was similar to the others. But physically, I was attracted by him... more than any other time it had happened in the past: It was probably me who was just growing up.
- He's really nice... Did I tell you that I dream about him at night? - I said to Simona.
I'm sure she did not expect that one, coming from me. Oh well... so and so, actually...
- Really? And what do you do in your dream?

For my part, I did everything I could to meet Giuseppe again: I was somehow stalking Anna, I continued to bother Simona... and the nice part was that everything came so natural to me!
I wanted to see him again... at all costs: it was my main thought. And it was the first time I had very clear in my mind what I wanted.
And so the magic of college parties struck again. It was easy to understand, there was at least half of our small group wishing to see people they had met at the party, and viceversa, at least as many people in the other group that wanted to meet some of us.
Some Saturdays later... it must’ve been on Easter Saturday, if I remember correctly, and we were in a great pizzeria... then Giuseppe reappeared.
He was not very tall... maybe a span taller than me, maybe less... dark hair, his skin was a little dark too... rather thin, but with a beautiful body, as I had guessed, and how I was able to verify that evening when he took off the sweater, at the other side of the table...
Now that I think about it... it was Giuseppe who often spoke to me about a theory according to which I, light brown hair (I always loved to call myself “blonde”, for simplicity...) and blue eyes, could not help but be attracted to someone like him... and viceversa, of course.
I must admit that the theory worked perfectly.
It just took a bit of time... Among the things that Giuseppe had in common with his college group, there was a reluctance to show himself awake and to grasp what was happening around...
I tried to never miss an opportunity to throw my eyes on him... as we met in the evening I tried to stay far from him... I did not want to be the first to go and talk to him, but I longed for him to come to me. And by no doubt he had noticed it, because soon I realized that he was staring at me too... and he often came by and asked me how I felt, took me by the arm... how many times I was tempted to take his hand, as he was describing his exams and I watched him entranced.
And... nothing, then he was walking away and back to talk to his friends, along with the other girls. It was clear that he did not care for anyone else, but I was not able to understand whether I could be interesting to him.
Somehow, however, I managed to get him to pick me up. I owned no car yet... I had been working not long enough and then, all in all, I was rather comfortable going to work by bus. And then, usually, we were always able to find someone who would come and rescue us or for returning us home, in those rare cases when Simona and me reached the meeting point by bus.
Good for me... had it not been because of this need of taking me home, who knows how long I would have waited for Giuseppe!
It was at least the third time that we were going to the cinema together just me and him... it was May, movies there were essentially kind of silly stuff, and it seemed obvious that if I was going out with him it was because I was interested in something more than the movie...
And in the end he understood. Or rather, and this is what I would find more deplorable in him after some time, he became convinced that he could go out with me.
- …Look, I knew you were coming after me, you know... I am just... you know, I'm a little strange like this and...
He kept on replying me with these words every time I accused him... and it happened many times, since I enjoyed that a lot... reproaching him for not having taken a single step to be with me...
According to the mindset that I made up at the time, he went on meeting me all the time that we spent together, as a great friend... a woman friend, but never like one for which he could feel, suffer... in a word, love...
We travelled through experiences of all kinds, we spent very good times and also bad times, but I think there never were deep feelings on his side. Neither my part, of course, otherwise, perhaps, I would remember him like that.
Yet the days we spent were very impressive... I could say that the best part of dating Giuseppe was being able to easily do only and always the things that I liked to do. From a practical point of view, at least, that was gratifying me very much... but, in hindsight, it’s not that he would do any sacrifice for me.

* * *

I do not know why, but I can browse fast enough these diary pages.
Probably due to the fact that from those years with Giuseppe I remember overall a lot physical details, many sensations and only a few sentences or ideas that would make those journals worthy to be read back. Somebody should invent a machine to transcribe the feelings, and then maybe I could give a more complete picture of the time we lived together.
We had basically just started dating, and me and Giuseppe arranged to go on holiday together. Giuseppe proposed me a list of exotic locations... well, at a European scale... that he was interested in visiting, and gave me the choice: in the end we headed for Greece.
In those days I was just happy... I couldn’t wait to be with him, watching him, hug him, kiss him...
And then, all those things he was always making... I was very scared, at that time, to fossilize in my work, to go out in the evening just to go out, never doing anything interesting... and so I got fascinated by all his activities.
He had a lot of free time, as he was still in his studies: and so, every day he was jogging, or riding his bike... He had told me that virtually every year he was going on his skiing week holiday, and I could not wait to go back to skiing... Sometimes my parents had brought me to the mountains, as a child, but they always told me that I was just not interested: strange, because, from what I can remember, I've always liked the mountains, and then as I imagined to go up there together ho Giuseppe it was just fantastic.
And he also liked going to the theatre, he used to read a lot of books too...
...everything was… just perfect, with him...
As I said before... I could not say that, with Giuseppe, things used to be better at the beginning and worse after, or that there were some ups and downs... I was happy with him from start to end: simply, at some point, I realized that what I was experiencing was not enough. But, before that, I was able to really feel in seventh heaven.

Keeping into account my state of mind, the idea of going on holiday with him looked just fantastic. And it was also fantastic all that followed... me, who had never even slept with a boy...
We had purchased a camping tent, just before leaving... ah, yes: of course we both liked camping, and so it was decided unanimously that we would have travelled through Greece into our tent.
I left with a little apprehension towards Simona, because I was leaving alone and... I felt a little guilty: we had spent a lot of camping holidays together, she and me... but, after a few days, living in a tent got a somewhat different meaning.
Without the need for a special song, special atmosphere or particular words... I found myself making love with him.
Well... maybe I am not very ordered, as Davide says, but I remember that my first time was on August 24, 1990. And it is useless to describe how this page "stands out" among my diaries.
Yeah... in my childhood dreams I had imagined thousands of romantic circumstances, sweet, special... Well, that one was special too: the peculiarity lied in that there was no need for anything else, because I was satisfied with his presence, with his usual words, his usual... smell, his usual look.
We had been lying at the beach since the morning... we went regularly to the beach early in the morning for some jogging, then we returned to the camping in order to rest and have a shower, then we usually bought some food... nothing special: Giuseppe was a very simple guy and shared with me the goal of saving money... and then we walked back to the beach. We would have lunch under the umbrella, then we would read... we read the same books and we managed to work perfectly in sync, so that he turned the page only when me too had come at the end of the page.
That day, people on the beach seemed to go home earlier than usual... It was only the third day we were spending there and we had not yet been able to see a sunset without clouds... and we did not manage it even on that day, when the sky was finally clear!
I remember that, because for a moment... for a short moment, I thought that I would rather stay on the beach to watch the sun slowly descending into the sea.
But as we began to kiss, caress and then, over that towel... and then we stared into our eyes and then decided to go... actually, to run back to the tent... everything moved to the background.
I remember that in a few moments I found myself completely naked... how silly, well... not that I was wearing a lot of stuff, but the thoroughness with which he removed from me, besides my swimsuit, even the earrings... my earrings, yes! Who knows why... and the necklace that I was wearing all the times, and that hair clip... as he went on caressing me... and I was shaking ... and yet, very determined, I undressed him back, and then, with some little embarrassment... I got ready to accept him...
I think I have been walking off the ground for the following two days: Giuseppe kept on teasing me for quite some time, saying I was out of my mind, I had spent hours and hours in front of the mirror, that I was laughing for no reason...
Yes, I must admit that the first time it was a bit strange, but like all first times, it still retains its value... For a moment I also felt a bit of... not exactly pleasure, yes... but definitely not to the point that I would not want to try it again soon... To my surprise and, I'm sure, even Giuseppe’s, we continued to make love in the days that followed, with a pleasant regularity.
Still, I had to change my mind about him... The way he behaved, and although he went on denying... it seemed to me that it was the first time for him too, or at least one of the first: by minimizing, generalizing... as usual, he said he had already made it with three other girls, one of them being a foreigner. I remember that he spoke as if he had not felt anything at all for them... almost like if it was normal for him to go to bed with someone and then forget about her.
His attitude scared me... yes, I remember my fears... And then he hastened to tell me that with me it was different, that he really loved me... and only now I can clearly say to myself that all he wanted was to just keep calm the little girl at her first experience. In that moment, those words were very important to me, but... only on paper... because otherwise... it might have been harder for me to realize that what I was doing... I was doing carried mostly by physical attraction and not by the Love that I had always been idealizing.
But by no doubt at that time I needed to convince myself that I was doing something I knew it was right, and then I became convinced that I loved Giuseppe as never before.
It would have taken me a long time to even realize that I needed Davide’s sweetness, and even my life would have become quite different, by then... but in that summer I was really happy with how things went.

 Chapter 3

Well... I was pretty sure that I would have arrived to 1992 quite quickly.

Giuseppe’s years passed very quickly, like drowning in a limbo made of weekends spent together, holidays, dinners, evenings spent in his arms in front of the tv... eternal and hollow joy. I have no problem admitting that the thing I remember most was a gratifying physical satisfaction... and as a result the fact that I had matured, becoming aware of this other aspect of life.
However…
We used to go to the theatre, cinema... travelling... damn, it's so difficult to extrapolate what was actually missing to me in that relationship, using my thoughts from that time. I can do this more easily if I compare... behold, I prepare as of now the diary pages... the most sad... that relate to him... Walter... yes, if I compare with what happened a few years later.
My comments, my little limericks, are a sign of how I really felt.
In love, but not captured, not fully involved. And even less could have been Giuseppe, however there was nothing about which I could have accused him, because he was doing everything I wanted.
Giuseppe was normal, good, loving, ordinary, boring... Not when he had to face life, indeed: but facing me. I don’t think we quarrelled hardly ever: there was no topic where he would come me against me neither a conversation in which I could grasp a mistake of his.
One day I received, by mail, a very thorough questionnaire...
- ...Yes, it is addressed to "Mrs." Monica and asks me all sorts of things concerning my taste, about the products that I buy, about the programs that I watch on TV... do you think it's normal? - I asked him.
- But who is sending that to you, some women's magazine?
- No... I don’t think so… wait until I go and get it.
I got back on the phone after a while.
- Here it says that it’s a market research... and you could win a prize. But I'm not going to tell these people what are the things I’m interested into... In my opinion, they can’t do that... I feel like reporting them...
- Come on, Monica... You know they send these things to women because they are the ones who watch the tv advertisement and go to the grocery stores...
I knew he saw all womankind as inferior... he’d not say it openly, but it was obvious from his whole attitude. But it did not bother me, because he always managed to find a rational explanation for what he said: his were not prejudices, just inescapable truth.
So I tried a reply, but I was already losing.
- ...Except that my mother is the one who does the house shopping, anyway... it bothers me, that's it...
- Throw it away if you don’t want to answer... You can’t help that, Monica, you have a proper ethic, but there are a lot of other women... maybe your colleagues are eager to participate in that drawing...
Of course he was right...
I did not feel lesser, when I was with him: I had a very specific place in his world, like he had one in mine.
However, a number of... yes, quarrels, and... feelings were missing, to live and not just to mention, represent or explain.
Suddenly, everything looked too easy, too useless, too bland and, seized by a deep crisis, I tried to tell him that I wanted to stay apart from him for a while.
In a last spark of romance, in those two weeks when I had made up my mind, I had made an idea that Giuseppe would be shocked by this news... because up to two weeks before everything seemed to go all right, as usual... and I was then prepared to answer his questions, his prayers... but, as I should have imagined, his answer was:
- Yeah... I guess you're right... well, then we gave it up here...
I hated that night for several years. I hated him and that demeanour of his... boosting some female cliché, even if it was out of place in that circumstance, I became convinced that I had been also sexually used, going back to all the times he had told me he loved me.
Only long time later, I returned to thinking that everything he had done was driven solely by cold reason. He was a man, and he made love with women; he liked a girl, and then he dated her; the sport gave him physical wellness, and hence he rode a bicycle; this was the age to graduate, and so he went to college. There was no room for projects, dreams, ideals and romanticism.
Some time ago I was told that he went and live with a girl... I think he’s not changed.
I’ve never met him again.

* * *

So I went back to being Simona ‘s best friend.
In fact, now you could have said that the roles were reversed: I had become her big sister "thanks to experience gained on the field", as she used to say, with a joke that I would consider rather trivial if disclosed outside of our duo.
Yes... I had definitely become more self-confident, but it had not changed the way I saw my friend: on the other hand, since recently we had met quite rarely, although we phoned each other very often, I had a big desire of going back to spending some time with her.
But she… was instead becoming a bit more closed. She had been dating some guys... including... who was the one with the strange name... ah, yes: Dimitri... he must’ve had Russian origins or so...
But at that time she was quite depressed. That is, she would not show up except to closer friends, but...
She told me that she had created a new circle... it had not been long since they had started meeting, but according to her there were lots of very nice people and moreover it was crowded with handsome guys...
And soon I entered that group... not before I had persuaded my colleague Carmen to come with me.

Yeah... when you’re at work and during a break you meet people, when maybe you have something on your mind that you’d like to share... it’s inevitable to talk with co-workers, even if you don’t know them much. I hate this aspect of workplaces... I mean, I hate others too, but that's what brings you to form bonds that, in different situations, you would never have formed... Or maybe it’s because I am a woman and, in the words of Giuseppe, I am genetically led to speak just for the sake of gossip?
However, especially towards the end of my story with Giuseppe, I started chatting with Carmen, a girl who had been working in the supermarket... maybe for a month or two longer than I had.
She was a little bit smaller than me, the evil dwarf... no, let the past be the past and hatred and revenge stay silent, buried. She had black hair, but she dyed them often... I remember that time when she arrived at work with those blue reflections she had gotten at her trusty hairdresser...
A little chubby, she had little breasts, but she was always well dressed... skirts, long dresses, trendy shoes... she would have been the one telling me that I "was not promoting myself enough," advising me to change my look.
For almost one year I had not made bonds with any of my colleagues: I occasionally used to go to their dinners... but if they invited me to go out with any of their groups, I generally let it down. Yeah, especially because I was dating Giuseppe, but also ‘cause I did not think I could ever make a bond with them... and moreover there were people like thirty, thirty-five years old... that old... and how stupid I was to judge them!
But when I began to open myself to Carmen, I felt strangely well...

She showed a special kindness.
- I wish we could get to know ourselves more... you're really a good girl, you're so beautiful... if you think I can help you, if you need a friend, I'm here. I am giving you my phone number, so you can call me and maybe we can go out one day... and we talk about all of these men...
Those were exactly the words I needed to hear. That is, Simona was my closest friend, but as I found that someone else, someone who barely knew me was confident to me and loved me... it made me very happy at that moment.

We had gone out on our own for a couple of nights before I took her to the new circle of friends from Simona. Watch it here... the business card from that pub... thankfully they closed it, at least I won’t have to worry about going there again...
She had offered to pick me up, given that I still owned no car. Well, no... that's true: she came once alone, and another time with her boyfriend. They seemed to get along well... he was tall, a little raw, at first not easily likeable, but later you could understand that he was a nice guy to talk to...
As we met alone we talked about a lot of things, but I was immediately impressed that she used to speak with great conviction about herself, her clothes and her boyfriends. And, of course, with the same conviction she asked me what kind of guys I liked, what kind of guys I had dated and if I knew those stores within our hypermarket, which was usually selling some very nice things to wear.
Every time I asked her about her friends, where she was going on holiday or what she dreamed of doing in her future life... our speech inevitably would fell back on her man and the love that she felt... she had to compulsorily feel.
So, talking about my friends, I told her of my schoolmate Simona, her group of friends, the things we used to do on Saturday nights... In an attempt to return her manners towards me, I invited her to go out with them: I would not have expected that it could interest her much, however she agreed and thanked me warmly. I had the feeling, actually, she accepted mainly because this was giving her another chance to stay close to me and gift me with those bits of her experience.
For a month or so Carmen and her boyfriend joined our group, with increasing consistency.
Then, they broke up... she and I met for two nights in a row... well, let's say that at work she seemed to cry continuously for a week... as we met at the break she seemed in panic... and those evenings at the pub... always the same, by the way... she told me all the details of her story with this guy, that had lasted for ten months... and she was making it a matter of enormous dimensions, huge... it looked like only she knew what it meant to love.
I couldn’t help but try to help her, to advise, to calm her down... I felt almost uncomfortable for not being able to return her availability that she had shown me. And despite the fact that I did not share her way of behaving, of describing herself... so exaggerated, too confident and pompous, I was notwithstanding struck by that strong dose of sentimentalism that she lavished. Those were the things that made a love worth living... meeting your other half, fall in love, suffer, understand each other... and it was exactly what I had been missing in my affair with Giuseppe. What every woman would want to fill her life. In an almost unconscious manner, Carmen climbed a few steps, in my estimation.
What I did not notice at all, was that after only a few weeks Carmen stopped, curiously, speaking about her former boyfriend.
At that time I was too busy with my attempts to make her feel better... to raise her mood: she no longer seemed to have any other friends... as she had a spare moment, at work, she would come and ask me for advice, telling me about a dream she’d made or rather she would quote a phrase from her former fiancée and, with that sad little face of hers, she would ask me what I thought about it and what she should do.

- So... you going out with Carmen again tonight? – Simona asked me.
And I was replying that... yes, I could not avoid it, because she was going through a bad time and she needed me.
She had found the key to my heart, and she was soon going to deliver it to Walter.

* * *

I had just caught a glimpse of the new circle of friends from Simona, in those months... When I started going out regularly with them, the eyes with which I was seeing those girls and those guys were different than before... my life had changed in some way: Now I had turned into “Carmen’s little sister".
She nicknamed me like that, one night when we arrived at the meeting point dressed in much the same way and announcing everybody... like if someone were to be interested, by the way... that I would have slept at her place, that night.
I remember that, somehow, I had experienced a similar emotion to those from that day, the birthday party at sixteen... I would hardly dress myself anyway special just to go out… with friends, with strangers...
Yet, if Carmen’s look could have vaguely intrigued me in the previous months, mostly for a kind of female curiosity... now, after that last month and a little more, I felt almost compelled to follow her advice.
They had to be necessarily for good purposes... Like all of her promises:
- I'll never forget what you did for me... I'll always be grateful to you, for having been so close when I felt lost...
What I did not focus, at that time, was that it had not been me to stay close to her, but rather the opposite... And as for the promise... look, here's a verse of a song that seems written especially for her:
Sometimes we make promises we never mean to keep...

And so, quickly…
I started wearing those black mini skirts... those long skirts so weird... those dresses so short which I had never worn except when I went out with my boyfriend or my parents... platform shoes, those corsets... yeah, there is one, especially, that... no, I’ll tell you later... that sometimes I was almost ashamed to leave my house or take off my coat...
- You're so pretty, Monica... but why don’t you want to shock them all? You'll see, just listen to your little sister... the guys will fall at your feet...
Ah, yes... she also taught me how to put makeup on in a much more pronounced way... It was not vulgar... it was just very strong and I simply did not think it was right for my face... but, indeed, as she put it, it gave me a look like a real femme fatale.
No one noticed the changes, among our friends: no one knew me long enough to know that the way I looked, first, and the way I acted, later on, it was not the same as a few months earlier.
No one... except of course Simona.
But she didn’t modify her attitude towards me: she was a bit surprised... yes, I remember... how tender! She was a bit puzzled by the fact that now I had another friend as important as her (although I never missed an occasion to repeat that we two together were something unique), that I had changed my look... She would make fun of me saying that I was continuing to grow...
- ...At this rate, you’ll soon become a movie star! Latest fashion, a lot of suitors...
But, as always, she was my friend Simona. She would not have turned away either at that time or years later when I would have needed her again.

Carmen too had a very high esteem for Simona, especially as she realized that in that group there were indeed several nice guys, a few of which were engaged and some free.
We were about a dozen... maybe a few more, but we were not meeting all together every night. During the week for example me and Carmen were the only girls, in addition to those who were in a relationship.
And kinda soon it took shape a fracture among boys: there was a group, made of four or five, which seemed to be more active, more prone to nightlife... among them were those boys engaged with some of the girls aforementioned... then another group, dressed in a less fashionable way... usually standing more at one side, who would talk to you only if you went to greet them... Here it is, I knew... the thing I remember most about those nights is the way in which people went dressed!
- ...They should realize that wearing white socks, especially in winter, is really bad... - said my Magistra Elegantiarum... and I could have hardly imagined that, one day, the target of that criticism would have been next to marry her "little sister"!
When, years later, my Davide coined that definition for Carmen I rolled for half an hour laughing, realizing that it was very appropriate. He coined, or rather, he used one for me as well, that evening, but I prefer not to bring it back: I could not blame him, because it was undoubtedly the truth, but... it was not nice to me.
Davide and his two friends were actually a bit isolated from the rest of the group. Except for those nights when it was just maybe three or four of us... when the group was complete you could see the girls and boys on one side, intent on talking, hugging, and then... you’d watch them three leaning on a car, talking to themselves... they seemed to enjoy it a lot, sometimes they were reading some newspapers or a magazine.
Funny... in this very moment i feel like I can hear a little of the judgments that Carmen sticked onto them and on the other side the explanations that Davide gave me afterwards... Ohhh, but... by the way... it's true: somewhere there must be a note... this is already at its place along with the others, obviously... in which he wrote me that he had noticed me from the first day that he had seen me, had noticed the changes in me, but he would never stopped hoping that one day I would fall in love with him.
But first things first...

Beyond everything else, we must say that indeed the three boys were not much of a cheerful company. I had never been interested, for what concerns the boys, in just their beauty... like everyone else, they could strike me if they had something interesting: and they didn’t have anything interesting. They were not particularly flashy, did almost never join the others except when some team play was organized... I don’t remember I ever jumped on one of their car... generally speaking they were just going the three of them (or two, or four, it depended) like they had arrived at the meeting point.
Actually, no... once a friend of his... luckily Davide too is not meeting him anymore... he was alone... we all were six... but four of us had jumped onto the other car and they were already leaving... it would have not looked nice to chase and tell them that... yes, well, I was a bit scared of going in the car alone with him. So, a bit shy, a bit scared, I accepted to take a ride with him: I don’t remember exactly what he told me on the way... a bunch of words I did not understand or could not focus, but... maybe he had also made me some timid compliment... I was definitely very stupid to be worried, but... you know how it goes...
I still can not conceive how I could be a friend of both Simona and Carmen... especially when I think that Carmen had such a low opinion of those guys, and that Simona would have known, through them, the one who would have soon become her husband.

And then we girls didn’t care about them much: me, Simona and Carmen were in the group... we joked and laughed... among the other girls I remember only a certain Nicoletta, very nice, she was dating a man called... yes, Diego, a nice guy too.
The other girls were not very talkative... they were probably also rather poorly disposed towards us, which, in one way or another, had landed in the midst of their couples causing...
- You saw how that guy has been looking at you... the tall one, and even his friend... what's his name, do you know?
...quite a stir, according to Carmen.
But anyway, we didn’t care what the girls were thinking, or the friends... we were on a mission in order to have fun as much as possible, to find a boyfriend... and he had to be the most beautiful in the group.
What fools we were!
To my partial excuse, it must be said that at first I was not reasoning like this: maybe for a form of shyness that still remained partially inside me... maybe for the sudden news that I was facing... I was hardly returning a look or accepting an invitation outside of the group. Of course I was receiving many more of them than Carmen, and that’s probably why the small one was always sticking to me... I don’t know if that was the reason why she convinced me to go around so undressed... maybe it was part of the plan too.

Anyway, we began to meet quite regularly, spending the usual nights at the pub, going to the movies...
Now that I think about it, Nicoletta was the only one to wonder why Carmen was no longer speaking of her ex-boyfriend, after a month or so...
But something else was going to happen.

- So, did Walter invite you for dinner again? - Carmen asked me one day.
- Who, that idiot who always brings out that silly joke about his attic with the music... pussy-melting? - I replied with a disgust-factor next to 100.
- I don’t understand how you can not find him pleasant... that is, they are all nice, but he is the best, in my opinion... and since he likes you...
I was horrified thinking about that. Yes, yes... he was cute, but exaggerated... always talking, always joking and he was not exactly the best in style: as I would’ve understood in a short time, his strongest point was that he would stop at nothing.
- We already discussed that, Carmen... And as for… he liking me… then, look, he has already invited to go out with him all of the girls in the group, according to my recent survey...
- Well, that does not matter, you are of a special kind... maybe he’s really in love with you...
She had the ability to put the word love in any context... she could have used other ten, but instead she saw love everywhere. And little by little I began to think like this, too.
Months in autumn went away, then we spent the New Year’s Eve in a cottage by the sea, something quiet... the highest peak of activity we allowed ourselves was a dinner in a typical restaurant and then the night at the disco... Well, for those who had the chance: I got sick after dinner and, after a walk at the seafront, I preferred to go home... I had caught a cold and it was definitely because of the velvet dress that Carmen had convinced me to wear... "it’s light, yes, but if you just put on a cardigan and a pair of thick tights, you'll see that you won’t feel the cold."
Yeah ... Davide repeated me many times that at that time... yes, he was too shy to come and take me home... but he always says that he was watching me from afar and cared for me. I don’t believe I ever told him that, that night, there were so many people looking at me that I had just not noticed him...
And then came the Carnival, and Walter gave the best of himself.
He showed off with at least three different disguises, during those masquerade parties: he was always laughing, making jokes at everyone... he was even able to involve Davide’s little group of friends...
And… one night he decided to never get off from me.
I was dressed as a Minnie the little mouse... it was my classic costume, I was feeling good in it and I had been dressing like that for years...
But I had never been targeted by jokes (or by attentions, depending on your point of view) like that night.
He kept on taking off my headband with the fake ears, then he put cream on my black nose... he threw me onto an armchair and took my shoes off and then he took me to dance... I believe that at that point I was probably a little drunk... because I began to just have fun and laugh and I did not understand anything anymore.
I was not even hating him anymore... he had become just a very nice and cute guy... and every time that Carmen came close to me she was pumping me, telling me I was doing great.
And finally he kissed me... at the disco... then I remember that we kissed again at my home, and I was in the car with him... and I entered my house barefoot, with the shoes in one hand. I remember it because it was quite cold.
Probably I was depressed... I was feeling alone... I do not know, I've got to find an excuse to justify what happened. No, unfortunately I do not think that such big apologies do exist.

And we started to go out together.
I remember that I had immediately regretted what had happened, but... I could not get away from him.
I was going out with him, trying to stay away... we were among the other people, we held our hands, sometimes we went out alone, but I was as cold as possible. I thought he would have become bored, that he would have returned to play the fool with all the other girls.
But it didn’t happen.
We spent a lot of time talking about us: it was the last thing I would expect from someone like Walter who, in my opinion, was light enough to have a couple of ideas at all, in his head.
My past, his past...
- Everyone thinks I've had a lot of girls, but it is not like that... There was one girl, some time ago, which I was really loving, but she left me... maybe because of me... and now I want to find one as good as she was... as beautiful as her.
And then he always added a few compliments. But they were not compliments, the thing that could have aroused some interest in me: he could have been certain about this...
All these talks did in no way change the idea I had about him.
More subtly, however, they were some of his comments... here and there they seemed to be spontaneous... and they had the power to make me feel good much more than just a compliment.
Crazy... I did not even realize it, but whatever he said seemed designed to make me feel good... every word seemed weighed and had the power to give me confidence, to hit me where he knew he could please me...
Even in simplest considerations... If I had had a hard day at work, if I had had a fight with someone, he was able to make me feel right, but not in a trivial or too explicit mode... if our friends were about to decide the place to go, he would possibly propose one where he knew I would have liked to go back. Said like this, maybe it’s not so understandable... but it was not that kind of links or jokes or remarks that sometimes the guys make, thinking they’re being nice at you... the way he acted was absolutely spontaneous, dare I say... nice.
It took a long time before I realized... it was fake... or at least made on purpose.
But, by that time, I got to appreciate his kisses, and in particular those delicate caresses on my neck...
We were not doing anything else... at first I was surprised about this too... and then I said to myself that all in all he was not the guy who seemed to be. But I began to wait impatiently the moments when we met... for those caresses on the neck, he would lift my hair and... maybe it was because of his height that he could make me a similar effect.

A couple of months went by like that.
I could not have said I was in love, but I was surprised that so much time had gone and I would find myself quite well with him.
Meanwhile... our circle of friends turned into something particular. Walter and his friends, after the carnival celebrations, they arrived a couple of times along with other boys, who apparently worked in some nightclub.
- If we are interested in going dancing and having a private niche and discounts, they can help us...
I liked to dance... Simona, too... Carmen would have liked any place where she could show off… to the other boys the idea seemed good... except to Davide and his friends.
So, we began to meet in the evening just to have a quick chat, and then we went to the disco, and they somewhere else.
It was May... June... after some Fridays and Saturdays nights our group began to grow... it reached thirty, forty people... we were going all around the city to collect them all.
My little agenda exploded and I had to fill it with extra sheets of paper! Yeah... in those days she came to visit me a couple of times my friend Irene from Genoa: the first time she stayed for a full weekend... yes, more or less... and then she happened to be in our region some other time. I remember she was stunned by the fact that every time she saw me going around with more and more new people.

Walter used to take me around on his car, then he was leaving me in the midst of new friends and he would go to treat public relations between the various groups... not before lending me a bunch of roses or other flowers... or a compliment on my haircut...
- You are amazing... all of my friends tell me that I'm dating the prettiest and finest girl they’ve ever seen...
According to some known ritual, he continued to make me these compliments spot-on... he knew that if he had only done physical praises I would have probably felt like a piece of furniture... a doll that he could exhibit in his social evenings... But by putting that extra... Just like in gifts, which he always managed to pick so that they would hit some sensitive aspect of my personality...
I met a lot of people... I don’t have very clear ideas about that time... I began to sleep quite little and at work both me and Carmen were arriving more and more asleep... we would go dancing two and even three times a week... staying until late and later.
And... unbelievable as it could be... I started to feel something for Walter.
We were always out together... but not like simple sweethearts: we two were maintaining the circle’s schedule, all the boys and the girls were basically owned by us, we were really important. And it was thanks to him that I was going through that magical time, that every time I walked into a nightclub bouncers and bartenders treated me like a diva.
I wanted to express all my gratitude, feeling that we were two to share that moment, and... incredible, I never felt him close enough to me...
I never thought it could happen.
I ignored that motto... you recognize the great love immediately: as soon as you meet him you think "who is this asshole?"... Believing that I could have never considered him anything but a fool, I just got carried away...
I began to show up everything that mother nature had given me. For a few weeks I had been locked in my jeans, to curb any hot spirits of Walter’s... but now... I would have done anything to feel him closer to me.
And slowly I fell at his feet.
I was having a lot of fun... I mean... I don’t know if I was having fun, but I was going through all those experiences that I had never lived: I was always going home really late... how many times my parents were about to yell at me... I went out every night, I liked the way I appeared to the people, I had so many friends.
I was living for real.
The world existed only as Walter and Carmen. It was thanks to them that I was so excited.
And from there, to get to Walter’s attic it was just a matter of no-time.
It happened in the worst way, on my part... The time I spent with him was never enough and, although I wouldn’t want to, I was the one to take him to bed one evening...
How designed was it all... and how stupid was I... not to connect all the signs. Unfortunately, there were still a few pieces of the puzzle missing.

* * *

I can be thankful that Simona didn’t see me in those conditions.
At one point she broke away from the group of disco-clubbers and returned to meet the other friends. Or maybe other people... I'm not sure, because we were not much in contact, in that period.
Later she told me that, by means of the sister of one of those guys, she met a boy, and began to date him after a few months.
I would have come to know him only some time later.
It happened also another important thing, to be honest, at that time: Davide went out for a while with a girl which he barely brought to our meeting place... It's true, that thing surprised me: I had really thought that those three were a bit strange... I think that he would be upset to hear me saying it again now...
I'm sorry that I don’t have many memories of what the people really most important in my life did in that year.

Meanwhile holidays approached...
Until the day before I went on living the routine of those months: work, meeting in the “largest circle of friends around the world", in the words of Carmen, then discos and then at Walter's house.
I did... yes, I did certain things, in bed with him, that I had never tried: every centimeter of my skin was burning, I would never want to stop... Whatever he wanted me to do, it became a command to me... though he actually was not asking anything: so I continued to feel increasingly insecure… and uncertain... I was working perpetually to try to please him and to return the joy that he gave me.
I was asking all the time if he loved me... if he would ever leave me.
Carmen was all too happy to have a chance to show me the whole variety of underwear brands at the supermarket, and I became their main customer.
- One can tell by your eyes that you're in seventh heaven, Monica... I'm really happy for you and Walter...
In fact, I doubt that in my eyes you could read something else, beyond sleepness and complete blurring of mind. Ah, of course, behind the heavy makeup.
However, for the holidays Carmen towed a guy from the group and brought him on vacation together with me and Walter.
Here it is... the receipt from the hotel in Benidorm... But we could have been anywhere else, because I remember basically just the bed in our room, and little else... I was in big need to rest, given the latest months, and yet I was like hypnotized...
I even got to feel guilty when I got my period, because I was afraid of not being at his level... doing all the sports he loved to do.
And it is easy to imagine what happened when, after a few months, he told me he was going to leave me.

* * *

Disco nights had gone somehow reducing, in the latest times: we were almost back to our small circle from a year before, just a little more numerous.
I made the further mistake of thinking that it was my fault, if we had changed our lifestyle, and that maybe this was why he was no longer feeling comfortable with me.
Walter had told me that he had met back one of his ex-girlfriend... this thing had struck him a lot despite he was in love with me, and therefore, not to hurt me... yeah, basically the usual things.
No, maybe at the time those were not yet the usual things, for me... The point is that, by then, my life was going on only as a function of him... and I could not accept losing him, for no reason at all: so, if earlier I had been at his feet, from that moment on I became a doormat.
Based on that idea that I had made up in my mind, I began to invite him to go dancing, I tried to organize with Carmen and everybody who had more desire of discos...
After two or three invitations he accepted... possibly it had been a couple of weeks, but the physical contact with his body brought me to the moon...
"I could never live without you, my love..." Dumb Monica left a note: 24 November 1993. One of the many, in hindsight... here... and again...
But we didn’t go back to dating. I even tried... I went to pick him up at work on purpose, by taking advantage of a half day off the job, I was waiting for him in front of his house... I was calling him many times a day.
We met several other times at his house...
I felt like a whore ... I used to go at his place just to have sex, and so as to get, in those moments, the promise that he would have never dumped me... but, then, two days later he was confirming that nothing had changed.
At Christmas, Walter was very rude to me, and for a while I thought I would get over him: he had come to my house with his alleged ex-girlfriend... he had called me specifically to inform me he would have come to greet me, but he had not said he’d have not been alone. I had almost figured out that he had done it on purpose, yet this was not even minimally sufficient.
At least it was useful to make me throw away the gift I had bought and avoid me a further bad scene.

I phoned Carmen on Christmas Eve too, desperate as always, from one month to that part.
- I can’t go on without him... I feel like dying...
It was all very symmetrical, like Davide would say: now I was constantly crying on Carmen’s shoulder, as she had done earlier. Only, I would not have stopped so quickly because... because, ultimately, I was not pretending.
On Christmas Eve, effectively, Carmen came and visit me, spurring me to go out, but I didn’t feel like. And so it happened on subsequent evenings in January, February...
She was always very kind... she listened to me in all of those talks...
She was not the only one, in fact. My mom, and, as far as possible, even my dad were worried for me for quite some time.
- For sure, you must not meet him anymore - my mom told me.
But I could not hear her.
I was shaken if the phone rang... when, rarely, I was passing by the old meeting point, I would check right away if Walter was there...
I went on calling him for quite a while.
We would talk of this and that... that phrase that I was afraid to hear, i.e. the certainty that he was dating again his ex-girlfriend, I didn’t hear... but, on reflection, I could not say that he had done nothing else, in that time.
And then I would hang up the phone, desperate.
I went at his place one more night... as crazy as I could be, I had decided that I would have got pregnant in order not to lose him. That evening I was sure that I would have cheated, I would have... done everything to succeed: But... I don’t know why, because it all went according to my plans, but it didn’t happen...
Needless to say I was very lucky!

At some point, however, I stopped meeting Walter and managed to get me to realize that I would have never been his woman again.
He left for a month of work around Europe.
I slowly began to go out again with old friends...
But I could not take him off my heart.
Spring came, then summer... in these pages there are only my dedication, my sad poems... I immersed myself in a limbo from which it was impossible to escape.
More or less consciously, I swore to myself that I would have never had another boyfriend, because no one else could give me what he had given to me.
For a full year... for how long... I was dedicating songs on the radio hoping that he would listen... I didn’t have the courage to call him or visit him, not much because I had gotten back my self-esteem, but rather because I had realized the futility of it all.
I created an ideal icon of him... I wrote his name hundreds, thousands of times... I recorded on a bunch of audio tapes the music of those evenings at the disco, I turned all his gifts into sacred icons...
And my girlfriends, and the few boys, heard me say that name and those dates for an infinite number of times.

The company had shrunk again: we were back to the original dozen, with the difference that now there were mostly engaged people
Carmen was dating that guy whose name I’ve removed... no, it was not the one from the holidays... Simona was dating Gigi and Davide was going out with Barbara... I was the only girl alone, and then there were some other boys.
We were not meeting every night... but since staying at home alone was a nightmare to me, often Carmen came and visit me, sometimes alone, sometimes with her bf... he was a bit silly, he had nothing to do with the group in which we had met him... on second thought, who knows what he must’ve thought of me, seeing me in those conditions...
Simona was also calling me rather often... it was more unlikely than she would come and visit me. She didn’t tell me, at that time... indeed, actually she never said it, but... she was not pleased to see Carmen. She was convinced that it had been because of her that I was suffering so much... Yeah, if she had insisted a little more, if she had given me stronger shakes maybe I would have understood, but... I don’t know, probably I was not able to understand a thing and it wouldn’t have made any difference. I regret a little, thinking that we lost those large-scale moments of complicity that we used to live before, after those years... We remained great friends, we continued to chat and to confide, but our relations have become a bit more formal... perhaps it is part of growing up or perhaps those events have marked us.
In the early days Carmen was treating me like a doctor would treat a patient: she diagnosed of my story with Walter, explaining to me what I could have done wrong...
- If you're really in love with him, if he was all right with you as you say... you'll see that everything will work out, he will come back to you...
Using her usual magic words, she was leading me by the hand in that fantastic world made of heartbreaks, dreams, hopes... the world where love was all around and there was nothing outside of it. She was always so close... I was crying and she stroked my head, trying to comfort me. I did not realize that the more I entered that world, the more I was losing the ability... I don’t mean to quickly forget Walter, but at least to return to live.
When I was going out I was mostly on my own, I didn’t talk much with anyone. I was not interested into the boys, I had no will for jokes... I did not want to meet anyone, and in fact I did not get to know anyone outside of the little circle of people.
However, if a friend asked me if I was sick, I would soon let me go and I tell her my story... in strong words, far too strong, judging by the reactions which always noticed in them.
Yet I couldn’t help it... I saw nothing but the memory of Walter ...

And I continued to tear myself off me in those memories... I remember the summer came, and I went on holiday vacation with Carmen, her boyfriend and another couple... From that vacation I recall only the sadness and despair that assailed me if I only let myself get convinced to go to some disco... that deep romantic sadness in front of the sunset at the beach...
I really had to be an interesting sight, for others.
When everyone was returning to the hotel, at dinner, I used to said "I'll join you in a moment", attaching some fake excuse. And so I moved my towel towards the shore... there were rocks on the shore, and I was leaning onto them... and then I would start staring at the horizon... and began to cry, without restraint. During the day I was also spending hours in silence, even when I was with the others: and in those moments at sunset, then I would stand there for hours, without feeling the cold, the wind... I was only wearing a swimsuit, shorts and a cotton T-shirt and yet I was there...
Especially the first days, Carmen and the other girls were concerned about me and, since I was not going back to the hotel, they would come looking for me at the beach...
- Come on, you beautiful lady, go change your clothes, we wait for you and then we go for an ice cream...
But it was not at all such an attractive prospect. Every time I allowed my friends to carry me around from, I would feel the usual tears press from the inside of the eyes, and so I realized that I was not feeling any better than when I was standing alone at the beach... besides to not being at all a good company fellow.
But I was impressed in how two guys saw me... Whenever there was a chance to talk about a situation that had to do with engagement or feelings, they would turn towards me...
- Monica, you must definitely be a very romantic girl...
- Yeah... nothing to do with my woman here who...
Then they returned to play jokes with each other. And I wouldn’t comment: Yes, I was a romantic one, but why should I explain... I stood in silence, waiting for Carmen to take me by the hand.
And, in a similar way, they the following months went by.

* * *

The first months in '95 are noteworthy because Davide and I started to exchange a few more words at last.
Well, to tell the truth, at last is something I can say now, but back then I did not feel exactly like that... Poor fellow, he was talking to me, asking me if I was feeling better, he tried to play jokes... he told me that his girlfriend had gone a few weeks before... he looked a bit sad, but he was trying to infuse me courage...
On second thought... I’d not call him poor at all! One of the first things he told me when we started going out together was that "since I was looking fatter and much worse", he felt less uncomfortable in coming to me and talk, compared to the early days...
And that was indeed true...

Those times of miniskirts and always freshly combed hair had gone. I had created an allotment of my wardrobe into which I could enclose all of those clothes, and it was connected to those icons that I began to worship anytime Walter happened to cross my mind.
And I was getting fatter... I think I got about twenty pounds, in those years... Because, anyway, there was no one for whom I could have reasons to feel and show out... I was pretty resigned, no longer interested at all about my physical appearance, my future, my ambitions... Without Walter I was no longer anything.
But, despite everything... life went on: I did not have the courage to slit my wrists as I had often threatened, and then, in a state of total apathy, took a few job talks in order to find a more rewarding job and then decided to move to live by myself.
- But aren’t you too young to go and stay on your own? – my father used to ask me. Yeah, he was right... but I could not help it: I was convinced that nothing would change, that I would never be happy... but I had to do something. Life has its strength... or its inertia, sometimes, that is simply unstoppable.
My mother, far more comprehensive by nature, would reply to him that the situation I was experiencing was unfortunately very delicate, that I needed to recover... and so, of course, they both finally helped me in this big step.
I still can’t help but think that I caused strong displease to my father, even though he never showed it. I'll never forgive myself, in sight of what was going to happen soon.

I found a small flat not far from my parents' house... I had considered, actually, to go and live next to Walter's house...
"Can I confess I've been hanging around your old address?"
How many times I listened to that song back then... everytime I went back to the places where he used to live, in an attack of nostalgia, and I could see me again, happy at first, then angry, and in the end just sad, of immeasurable sadness.
But, a bit by chance and a bit because of some minimum common sense, I settled at the bottom of that small street next to the public gardens.
My dad helped me revise the electrical system, find some furniture not too expensive to furnish the three small rooms available in there... He also installed a fantastic anti-burglar system that, he claimed, would protect me from thieves and maniacs...
Yeah... I could never understand how it was possible, but after a few months that I owned my landline phone, I began to receive phone calls... those absurd phone calls from mentally ill people who tell you a bunch of bad words, and probably take pleasure in doing so. I remember that I was even suspicious about Davide, at the time: only a few persons had my number, and it seemed strange that others would...
I hadn’t understood anything yet.

I kept meeting Carmen, at work and along with friends.
She had changed her boyfriend again, and this seemed to be a normal person at last, neither exalted nor stupid nor vulgar. He had perhaps the disadvantage of being a bit too much under the thumb of her, but he evidently was not realizing that... and if I had had the slightest interest in finding new friends I would have talked to him... he was quite nice and I might have given him some forward-thinking advice...
No, actually at that time I wasn’t yet angry with Carmen.
We were still working together, we continued to go out... I had even invited her to my home, in order to return all the times she had invited made me to sleep with her. But... I do not know why, but she was no longer so close to me as in past times. Talking to myself, I thought it was quite normal that she was thinking more about her future: she, who had always placed love above all the rest, was probably making up her mind and was even making plans with her boyfriend...
She, who could.
Resigned, as ever since Walter had left me... I was happy for her, I was living her life reflected onto me in place of the one that I no longer had... I would have never had.
Sometimes, when she was coming to my house, she helped me to fix the mess that I always left around... Not only I was messy by nature, but at that time I had no wish to have an in-order house. Yeah, I always let the jar of Nutella on some table... and she pecked me every time, and then rushed to put it back at its proper place.
I was in permanent need of support... and I knew that she would have always given it to me. I let myself go, when we were alone crying about trifles... the fact that she was there to console me was gratifying. She was always in the right role at the right time: she had been able to give me what I wanted when I wanted to have fun, go out, get noticed, and now that I just wanted to lock myself into myself and being sad, she was again able to give me what I desired.
Locking myself out would have meant to get away from everybody... Although Carmen was slowly getting colder in giving me her moral support (I had no need for material support anymore... I didn’t care about anything), I did not join these two aspects. I considered just normal that she would have lived her own life... and I would have been forever alone, a hard-hearted spinster friend.

We were going out just on Friday and Saturday... and only sometimes, sporadically, during the week.
The only event that I remember from that spring was Simona’s wedding: I had been given the good news as a preview from my friend a few months earlier... and I remember how I had reacted to that.
- I'm... I'm really happy for you and Gigi... If only... oh, if only I could share your joy...
And I had tears in my eyes.
She could have told me many standard words... but she was Simona.
- Monica... I don’t understand you... I don’t know how you could tear yourself out like this... why can’t you look at the world through the eyes you once had? It’s not worth suffering for that guy... it never was, I told you so many times... but if you’ve been in love with him, I can understand... But, after all this time... you're just wasting your life...
I didn’t give the slightest meaning to those words... I appreciated them because they came from Simona, but I was not able to hear. Indeed, had not been her to talk to me like that, I would have said to mind her own business, because she could not understand, and only Carmen was able to give me a chance to wallow into emotions and in particular the pain into which I found myself so well.
However the day of farewell hen arrived, and then marriage.
Simona’s last maiden night was spent in a Japanese restaurant... it was the first time I went there, and needless to say it was also the last, given how I felt that night: All of Simona’s friends, who had been my friends too... were around me. They had been around in all the groups that we had shared... and everywhere I turned I could see happy people, and I could hear my past talking and I said to myself that everything was buried, that after feeling what I had felt, and lost, nothing could ever again be of any value for me.
I arrived home in tears, as usual, with a sense of emptiness that was destroying me.
On Saturday I partially recovered... That night I slept at my parents’, my mother was very keen to take me to the church, hoping I could feel a bit better... it was the most important day in the life of my most important friend, she didn’t want me to feel blue...
She had insisted so much that I would buy myself a new dress... My mom had probably dreamt of this day for years... in our childhood dreams Simona and I were due to get married in the same time, surrounded by tons of happiness...
But for me it wasn’t like that, at all...
We went shopping the whole afternoon. The first problem was that nothing could fit on me: they let me try out some skirts and… the short ones were making me aware that my thighs had grown out of proportion... and with the long ones my silhouette showed off a horrible belly... And indeed, it had possibly been at least one year since the last time I had dressed something beautiful. For that reason, and also because it would have reflected my state of mind, I was adamant to attend the ceremony in the usual denim salopette that I was always wearing.
But I wasn’t allowed, everybody said that. In the end, I chose a blue dress, quite large... I was showing at least ten years more than my real age and my hair helped that too, probably as a revenge for the poor care that I had dedicated to them recently, were giving me an indescribable look.
The key point was, however, Simona’s marriage: their happiness was not at all affected by my mood that day and, fortunately, neither by my silence. And now it has been four years.

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