UNTIL DAYLIGHT

3

3.

You are so beautiful that often

you would like to die.

There have always been times when I stayed for mine. Moments in which silence reigned not only inside me, but also outside. I let myself be surrounded and this relaxes me. I can concentrate on voices that seemed to be in my head, as if they wanted to make noise, unable to bear the silence that was trying to chase them away. Every fear is afraid of a silence used as a weapon against it. A fear made vulnerable by words, or noises, that don't hang around her.

Fears are also like us humans; defenseless against the weapons to drive them away ..

Mrs. Frazzi and I had finished dinner for 10 minutes, and after having placed the garbage in the bag, I decided to go and throw it away, and then retire to my room. I sighed as I thought about what my parents were doing now that I was away from home. I often believed that they clung to me so as not to collapse them. My father had not taken my departure well, when we went to the airport he did not deign to look at me, he did not get out of the car to greet me, while my mother let me go with a single hug, turning her back and walking away. They hadn't called me in these two weeks to accept themselves well, no message, and from this I understood that family love is given to you only in those moments when you have to grow up, because you are small and unable to face things, but, once you reach adolescence, everything starts to take a different shape: you are just a child and that's it!

I threw the envelope in the unsorted paper and looked at my cell phone as I walked back to the entrance of the b & b.

He opened the w******p chat and I found a message from Matteo:

- What do you say if we see you tonight?

I offer you a coke.

No alcohol, I promise.

I smiled.

I had met Matteo the same day I arrived here, at the airport. He was immediately likeable, even helping me with the suitcases. From there we started talking, and seeing each other twice.

The first had gone quietly; he had taken me for a ride in the park. He had talked to me a little about himself, confessing to me that he was from a good family, but that he only had a good language. When my face said it, he took on an expression mixed with 'don't think badly, he didn't mean that', and 'sorry?'

He understood it immediately, starting to laugh at the face I had made at that moment:

"That's not what I meant!" He laughed heartily, while I was getting more and more embarrassed!

“I wasn't thinking badly at all, Matteo!” I replied, on the defensive, and full of shame for having understood a non-existent double meaning, with the first boy I met in the new city!

I was fantastic, wasn't I?

No.

Instead, the second exit was different. We met after two evenings, he came to pick me up at the b & b, taking me to eat a pizza, and then a few laps in some bars open in the area. It was nice to spend the evening in his company, he was a very sociable boy, even if, from his attitude, he seemed to give the impression of the opposite. I liked him.

But I was afraid to trust me, and this was holding me back a bit. When I saw him approaching, I automatically sprinted to move. I didn't like it when someone got closer than the limits I set myself.

On the second date I let myself go with the beers, and the evening went well. Upon returning home, he then let go of him, starting to kiss me, and with his hands to touch my skin under the shirt. Initially I liked it, I was almost convinced to let myself go; so what harm would it have been?

"No .. Matteo .. Wait .." I murmured, with my hands still on his face, as I bit my lips. I looked into his eyes: "I don't want to run .. Excuse me."

Grinning at me, he sat straight back in the seat, and shook his head.

"No, you're right! We got too carried away." He started laughing.

I decided to reply to the message, accepting his invitation:

- Go for the coke - cola!

I'll wait for you in half an hour, I have to warn

Mrs. Frazzi that I am leaving.

He replied with an emoji.

I ran to my room and went to fix myself, brushing my makeup, and fixing my hair. When I got down I wrote a note to Signora Frazzi, and then went to wait for Matteo to come and get me.

***

We stayed close to my area, in an isolated parking lot, lit by street lamps, and surrounded by little vegetation, including trees and bushes.

I looked at Matteo: he kept his hair tied in a ponytail, wearing a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. I smiled and pushed the tuft of hair behind his ear. My gesture from a man.

"I'm the man here, hey! Are you stealing my part?" I ask jokingly.

I shook my head, still laughing: "I don't see you at all as a woman, too much of a man."

“And luckily!” He exclaimed he.

I looked around and sighed. I had the usual thoughts tormenting my head, as if everything were an alarm bell.

I hated this side of me. I hated not being able to get lost in someone's arms. I hated my being always on a war footing, or on the defensive. It didn't make me feel free at all!

"Do I put you in awe?" Asked Matteo, while the silence had become, think inside his car.

"No, I was just a little thoughtful .."

"Do you want to talk about it with me?"

I gave a hint of a smile and shook my head: "It's about how, and if, I'll be able to settle here. Everything I look at is new, different .." I muttered. "Sometimes I feel like I'm a fish out of water, and I'm afraid I won't be able to create something here."

"You just have to be patient and things will come by themselves. Whether you feel a little out of place is perfectly normal, but don't get caught up in your fears or you will never find peace before and with the place you are slowly getting to know." He said. , while lighting a cigarette.

I watched his every move. She was a nice guy, maybe too much to be in my company but she, she felt really lucky not to be alone, locked in that room of a b & b.

“Shall we smoke one?” He asked chuckling. "Or can't you hold this either?"

"That, yes, I can handle it! Unpleasant!"

It is useless to deny that at the first pitches I had started coughing, getting some teasing from Matteo, but I was able to feel a little lighter, more peaceful.

***

Fresh air came in through the window I had left half closed, and I thought of Frazzi's words at dinner. She told me about her marriage, her husband, and the difficulties they had encountered in having children.

She told me that she suffered a lot. That in her day being a mother was a truly beautiful thing, even with the difficulties that existed in every family, the joy that children brought could alleviate everything.

She confessed that her marriage was initially arranged, that she did not agree with this choice made by her parents and she, she did not even know the man she was going to spend the rest of her days with. ! She wasn't happy with that, at all.

"You know, Alessia, love plays tricks. Often we don't expect to fall in love with those we believe impossible, or not suitable for us. I had a boyfriend in those days before I knew I was going to marry my husband. My parents didn't know. that we were together, but still they never agreed that I was dating him in my group of friends. I thought he would always be the love of my life. I was a little girl, and it was obvious that I thought so. . I was not happy to get married to someone I didn't know, whom I had glimpsed in a photo. Nobody would do such a thing, but you had no choice! But, I can tell you that when I saw my husband I realized that up until then, there love that I had believed, the love that I believed to be eternal, was not that at all! you choose it, it is he who chooses you. "

Maybe I shouldn't have chosen my feelings with someone, it was they who would have chosen me. It was they who would have the power to let me go at the right time, and with whom they would deem fit for me.

You do not choose love, it is he who chooses you.