“I am so happy you are fine!!”

Giulianna was hugging me so hard that I almost die. The poor woman was crying so hard that I ended guiding her into the house and comforting her.

“Let me prepare you a cup of tea,” I told her between her sobs.

That was when I saw María.

“Kat! Finally!” She said, hugging me.

María is my short thin Italian friend. I met her when she was an exchange student in my school, and we have had a long distance friendship ever since then. So seeing her again after all this time was exciting.

“I should be the one saying that, don’t I?” I hugged her back.

She seemed thinner and paler than usual. She must had had a hell of a flu.

“Are you sure you are better?” I asked with doubt.

“I am good enough to come, don’t worry.” She said winking an eye to me. “Now you have to tell me everything that had happened these days! Starting from what happened yesterday!”

And so I did. I told her about the costumes, the masks, the drawings, the contests. And I also told her about that first night meeting Antonio, the boat parade, the gallery of wonders. And how he had appear when I had been drugged, and took me out of the river when I fainted.

Giulianna was horrified.

“Katerina, that is horrible! I hope you don’t get any rare disease! Let me go get you something from the doctor!”

Giulianna seemed to be more worried about the water than the drug. I told her I was fine, but at the end she went, and so it was María who listened to the end of my story.

“This Antonio seems dreamy,” María said sighing. “Why would he said that he is dangerous? Do you think he had a dark past?” Her eyes were shining.

María loves adventure way too much, and is a book geek.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I just… want to keep seeing him.” I admitted.

“Well, now you know where he lives,” she said happily. “He can’t run. Unless, of course, he changes his hotel room.”

“Yes, unless he does that.” I agreed.

There was a moment of silence.

“Oh my god, Kat! What if he does??” María shouted.

“I don’t know! I won’t be able to find him and discover the truth!!” I shouted back.

“You really think he would be so determined to…?”

“I don’t know! And I don’t want to know!”

“You should go back right now!” María said ceremoniously.

“What?”

“You should! At least to the hotel. You have to find out his last name! Ask in the reception.”

“But… I just went back…”

“You want to lose him again?” she exclaimed.

I didn’t, not again.

“Ok, you are right. Let’s go!”

“Oh, not me. YOU have to go.” She said, smiling.

“What?”

“This is your love story. I don’t want to mess it.” She winked at me. “Now go, Kat, go go go!”

And so I found myself back in the same hotel, in the reception, asking for the guy in the room 202.

“I am sorry, miss, he already left the room.” The receptionist said.

For a second, I had no idea what to say. Was this a joke? He had already run away? I had been here like an hour ago!

“Can you at least tell me his last name?” I asked.

“That goes against the confidentiality agreement, miss” He said.

I insisted but it was to no avail. I left the hotel feeling more heartbroken than the night before. He had actually run away.

I was never going to find him.