UNTIL DAYLIGHT

7

7.

The embroidered sky

as an answer to your questions.

Agnese was waiting for me sitting at the bar located on the Navigli. Since I had moved to Milan I had not been able to see them even once, and now I was there, with headphones on, and Maps on. It was just 5 o'clock. A cooler breeze was blowing, so much so that I had to shrug. The weather was gray, as always. I regretted the southern weather a little, but then I remembered why I was gone, and all this passed me by.

I tolerated that gloomy weather.

I was supposed to see her apartment with her, she needed it for university, and in the meantime I was going to take a look too. I looked at my cell phone for a second, starting to walk again, until she felt me grab her arm.

I whirled around, annoyed by that gesture. But when I noticed it was him, I almost lost my word.

“Are you crazy?” I burst out angrily.

At least that was what I wanted him to believe.

He started to smile before he spoke, looking me in the eye, and then just letting his gaze drop.

"You ran away and then you wouldn't have heard me with these .."

He stroked the headphone cord, brushing the skin on my neck. That contact gave me an absurd shiver, so much so that I had to push his hand away, and take a few steps back.

“What do you want?” I said defensively, and it started to do like yesterday, and like this morning.

I think he enjoyed making me be like that, and yet, I liked him in a way ..

How is it possible to experience sensations like this with only 3 times? How can a person take you like this, make you lose your mind, without even knowing it.

You like. You like it if it smiles, if it looks at you, if it talks ..

"My name is Mirko." He said he after doing the cascamorto.

I rolled my eyes and told him I didn't care to know, but he didn't help; he insisted on knowing mine.

"Alessia." I said tired and hoping that he would let me go. I was late, and Agnes hated latecomers.

She continued until she called him a guy, looking out of the gym.

He dismissed it easily, looking back at me.

“I'm counting on this coffee.” She told me later as she turned to go inside.

Before I completely disappeared from his sight, I was able to see him waiting for me to disappear from his sight.

I smiled. It was all strange, new.

Too new ..

I joined Agnes. She was leaning against the wall, her gaze on the cell phone screen, tapping her fingers quickly. She was nervous, something must have happened, surely.

I walked over to her.

"Agnes! Sorry I'm late, I met someone .." I murmured.

“He blew us up!” She exclaimed. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "The one in the apartment told me that he is no longer available and so I have to make do! What f*****g people .."

"Don't you know anyone who can help you?" I asked her trying to help her, in a bad way, but I think it's always something ..

"Unfortunately No. I found this ad on f*******:. It was a chance!"

She was really angry.

"If you want, I can ask the guy I met when I arrived, Matteo. Tonight I have to go out with him .."

She raised an eyebrow at me.

"Since when are you going out with a guy? And since when do you tell me anything?"

I started laughing: "I thought it wasn't that important .."

"Go out with him or say it?"

"Say it, of course."

"Wrong! Absolutely wrong, my dear! It is important that you tell me about it! I can give you a tip on these Milanese bullocks." She immediately changed her mood, taking an interest in me, and at my exit.

So, should I have told her about Mirko?

"Agnese there is something I have to tell you besides Matteo, of course .." I murmured feeling embarrassed.

Agnes stopped in front of me, closing her eyelids, looking at me.

"Like?"

"It's just to know your thoughts. It seems to me a terribly strange situation .."

We went to sit in a bar, and ordered two aperitifs. I looked around, we were close to the gym where Mirko had entered before.

“So: what do you want to start telling me about?” He asked bringing the straw to his lips.

"I start with something that happened to a friend of mine." Well, I was also very antisgamo! I continued: "she met this boy and she immediately took him, let's say .."

"Taken in what sense?"

"She doesn't know if she likes her, or if she's the only one who's obsessed with this .." I mumbled. "She met him by chance and from that moment she doesn't take him out of her head, and he seems to be behind her too, but I don't know .. I don't know what to think!" I gestured nervously.

"Um .. You don't know what to think .. Or her?" She wrinkled her nose unconvinced.

"You, of course .. No?" Antisgamo. Antisgamo!

She shrugged, seeming disinterested in helping me.

"Anyway, it doesn't matter," I said. "I'll ask Matteo tonight if she knows anyone who can let you know about an apartment."

"Tell me about this Matteo, rather!" She exclaimed.

I sighed and took a sip of my aperitif before telling her about Matteo. I loved that boy, I immediately took him to heart for how he had behaved with me, leaving aside the embarrassment of almost f*****g.

I started telling her about how I met him, about our first and second dates. I told her that he came from a good family, but that he has always seen himself as the black sheep. I also told her some anecdotes that he told me about his adolescence. Agnes laughed and immediately said: "One like that can never be your type."

I frowned, and this behavior of her bothered me a little:

" Why do you say that? "

Agnese continued to giggle, getting back upright in her chair, crossing her legs:

"Don't be offended but I don't see someone like this with someone like you. Here, temperamentally .. But how did you get him like that?"

I just shrugged, changing my gaze and pointing it at the gym. She could see Mirko come out with the phone to his ear. He took the straight path without looking around, and I stared at him.

***

When I returned to the b & b I went directly to Nina. I sat down on her stool and dropped the bag to the floor near her feet.

I rested my chin on her hand and watched her talk on the phone for a reservation.

She smiled at me and I returned the gesture, but weakly!

When she closed the call and the register, she focused on me, watching me closely before asking what I already knew:

" What have they done? "

I looked at her fingers, starting nervously scratching the cuticle on the side of her nails. I was afraid to tell her what I felt about a boy I had met alone one day, whom I had met by chance here, while he was looking for her girlfriend.

I sighed. I took one of those long, deep breaths, because when something touches your heart so much, it can't be told, or described, superficially.

I looked at Nina's face, who watched me as a mother watches her daughter as she is about to tell her what she doesn't want to hear, or that she fears her will hurt her.

"Do you know that boy from this morning? The one who asked you about that girl .. About her booking .."

My flaw when I was nervous, in fact, were the turns of the word!

Nina nodded, immediately remembering what, or rather, who I was talking about!

"The handsome young man hitting on you? Yes, of course I remember! What happened?" She then asked protectively.

I shook my head: "Nothing bad. I'm stupid, I think .."

She looked at me carefully, searching my face for some more answers to this sadness of mine. What was wrong with all of this?

I couldn't explain it myself!

"Is it absurd that I like him and do not even know him? In the sense .. I think of him .." I muttered embarrassed. "This afternoon I met him, she asked me my name and to go and have a coffee."

“And what's wrong with that?” She asked not understanding why I was having these problems. And, even I couldn't understand it, obviously ..

"I don't know him, Nina. I don't know if that's his girlfriend, if he's doing it on purpose .."

"Alessia, I saw him as he looked at you this morning while I was looking for that girl's reservation, he seems to be interested in you." She said. "And there's nothing wrong if you like it, it's not a crime!"

I looked Nina in the face for a couple of seconds, then threw my forehead on her arms, covering her face.

"Agnes is strange to me. I don't understand .." I raised my head again. "I also told her about Matteo and she immediately told me that he is not my type .."

Nina began to laugh, amused: "Agnes is like that. If any of the people she knows, even her friends, are one step ahead of her, they tend to do this, belittle. I've known her since she was in her mother's womb, I saw her being born and growing up. I welcomed that woman who was your age, with torn suitcases, and few clothes. She grew up hating her mother for this life he gave her, so when she is out of here that I do work, she acts like a b***h. "

I sighed. How many things does a person hide? How many masks do we have, do we create ourselves, so as not to show our true feelings? Our true being?

How many questions that no one can ever give an answer to, not even our ego.

"Go out with that guy, try to make some more friends." She said after a few minutes of silence.

I nodded.

I grabbed my cell phone and wrote a message to Matteo:

You:

Matt for tonight I jump, I don't want to

go out. Let's do it another time ..