Back to basics

We're together again and everything feels fine, for now. I called Avy, just to hear her voice, it's the one connection to America I want to keep.

We spend lazy days just being together, around the house or in the little village. Here, it's sometimes as if time isn't moving and it suits me just fine. I don't want to think about the future, about progress, about setting targets and goals. I came here to get away from life, even though I know there is really no such thing as escaping. You only put yourself in another position, but life goes on and you still have to deal with it. It's just so much easier in the quiet countryside, with only the people you love around.

Un certo sorriso

I'm back in a summery Toscana, it was hard leaving Avy again but at least she's not alone. The evenings here are so warm, when Bruno sits me down on his veranda and brings me a plate of prosciutto I remember the tastes and smells from years ago. It makes me angry, I can see the past but not the future, and what if those lost moments never return to me?

I can't be weak but I am, I miss my family and my childhood because things were so easy back then. I didn't ask any questions because I didn't need to know, it wasn't important. The only thing that mattered was this night and the next morning, spending time with them without a worry, without a single cloud in the sky.

Tom has promised to join me this week. He says he's not scared, I know he's lying but it doesn't matter. I need him here, as someone to lean on when the memories come too close.

NYC ghosts

I've been calmer these past days, maybe awaiting a storm. We all have so many ghosts from our past - Avy has her father and Carl, Chloe has parts of her family and I have Henry. He deserved so much better, I treated him like the air I breathe and never even told him I was going away. And so yesterday as we went out to a bar I suddenly thought I saw him in the crowd. I froze, unable to look away, but if it was him I don't think he noticed me.

And now I'm thinking: what if it was? What if it wasn't? I know the world is a small place but can it be that small? Was he here looking for me? So many stupid ideas, one crazier than the other, but that's the way my mind's been working lately.

Avy and Chloe are sweet, they listen to me and try to help me gather my thoughts. I knew this about Avy but Chloe has always just been her friend to me. It's nice to discover that she is a good person too, one I will miss when I decide to go back to Italy. Hopefully with Tom, who after all is the only man I want to be with right now.

Back to school

I'm back in New York. The moment I got on the plane I realized how stupid it was, but I couldn't help myself. Tom said he would come back to me on Monday but didn't, so I called him but got no answer. It worried me but I'm not sure why, if it had to do more with him or with me.

When I landed I had no idea what to do, I walked around for an hour before I took a cab back to Manhattan, and I just now called Avy to see if I could stay with her. This is crazy, I should just turn around and go back to Bruno, but I have to know what's going to happen between me and Tom first. It's like an obsession, and idea I can't get over, and it really surprises me. I thought I was stronger, more independent, but I guess this is a valuable lesson.

The only thing I'm not sure of is what I'm supposed to learn from it.

In the closets

He called, and I didn't tell him all the things I want to do to him. The tension in the air made it impossible and put me off a little. We didn't say much at all, I wanted to and maybe he did as well but there was too much space between us. I'm afraid that my family and its history is part of it, but I don't know how to ask him. "Dear Tom, are you scared around me?" No, I will have to think of another way. I don't want to push him or risk driving him way, but I can't undo the past either.

One thing bothers me more than the rest though: what did he think we when we first met? That my father was just any other business man? That as a rich Italian family we probably don't have any disturbing secrets hidden away?

Empowered

After sunshine comes rain and after good days come a few strange ones. Ever since that late night conversation about my family's history Tom got more and more quite, not as sure of himself as before. Earlier today he suddenly left, he said he had a very important meeting and drove of to the airport alone. He promised that everything was fine but I could see in his eyes that something had changed.

He's going to call tonight, I can't wait, I want to hear from him and I want him to say that he's coming back. At the same time I can't help but feeling a little different myself, in relation to him. He was always so confident and I felt smaller in every possible way, but now he's shown me a weakness of some kind, it intrigues me. I feel like telling him what I want to do to him if and when he comes back, but that's a little too private for this blog...

In vino veritas

I guess you can never get used enough to drinking wine. This evening at dinner Bruno and I were talking about nothing and everything, mostly memories from a time when I was just a little girl, naively unaware of things happening around her. I understand so much more now that I've had the chance to process those events and view them from an adult's angle, but it's still just my interpretations. I'm not sure of things that scare me when I think of them as true, and after a few glasses of wine they became a little too intrusive.

Tom was just sitting there in silence, listening to us, and I think he heard things he didn't want to know, about my family and what they have done over the years to get to where they are now. We took a walk in the dark after the dolci, and he asked me about it. "You've watched too many movies" I replied, but without sounding very convincing. He really seemed afraid but I told him that's all in the past, that it has no relevance anymore. And what I should have said is of course that I don't know whether it's true or not, because I don't. I said too much and now it's too late to take it back. Damn wine.