Holidays. Finally.
It’s December 23rd and this means only one thing: uni lessons are going to STOP until January. FREEDOM. I know that these days I have to revise everything I’ve done between October and December since my exams take place in the first week of February, but I just NEED to have a break. Uni has been the most stressful thing I’ve ever dealt with and I was definitely not ready to attend lessons from 9 am to 8 pm. Subjects are really difficult - my bachelor’s degree is Modern Literature, may sound not the hardest thing in the universe but it is, trust me - and it took me some time to, you know, get into this new system.
Actually, I think this whole YEAR has been the most stressful I’ve ever gone through. Lots of things have changed - I started uni and I had a lot of social difficulties due to that, since I’m not the best at making new friends and stuff like that, but I sort of managed to find my little place in this giant universe. Not to mention the fact that I met a lot of new people in my town this summer and I’m so glad to finally have somebody to openly talk about me and what I went through. I had the best summer I’ve ever had, but I also had some very hard moments. As for now, I’m OK. I’m probably coming to terms with the fact that my life has changed - and I’m fine with it. However, this year has passed by so quickly and in a blink of an eye it’s Christmas time.
I’ve always loved Christmas. The atmosphere. The presents. The music. Mariah Carey everywhere. Not the family reunions though, but I guess I’m used to that. I just want to have a good time with my friends and free my mind from all the bad thoughts I had in the past months. I guess I’m ready to start a new year with brand new awareness.
It’s 11 am so I get dressed and prepared for the day. I look at the mirror and I see a young, dark-haired boy with a completely destroyed face since I slept for twelve hours. Even my hair is a mess. I wear a black and white striped sweater, baggy blue jeans, my Vans and a necklace with a planet pendant. I look at my phone and - guess what? - it is bombarded by text messages from my friends.
I smile. There’s no Christmas time without Tombola. It’s kind of an Italian tradition, even if I’m so unlucky in it and there’s always someone who wins (that is Davide 99,9% of the time) while I still have, like, fourteen numbers missing, but it’s just a way to have fun together and eat and talk. I don’t know where I’d be right now without my friends, especially after last April. It feels like it happened a lot of time ago, but it’s been just seven months since I broke up with my boyfriend. I don’t even want to pronounce his name since he has caused the biggest pain I’ve ever had. I met him the first days of February and we broke up in the last days of April, just three months in which he destroyed me and made me feel like a toy. He built a giant tower of lies and I accidentally got locked in it, while he was deluding me and making me feel miserable. Thanks God, my friends made me open my eyes and now I’m completely detoxed from his influence. Not that I don’t want to, you know, start another relationship, but I feel like I still need to find the right person. And he’s DEFINITELY not.
I spend the day doing absolutely nothing, just scrolling my Instagram and TikTok dashboards while listening to my Conan Gray playlist on Spotify. He’s been my favorite singer this year and I’m still surprised that every song I hear from him talks about me! It’s becoming pretty creepy. At 8:40 pm Davide calls me.
“Hey, Dave”, I say when I reply. “What’s up?”
“I’m outside. It’s almost 9! Where the fuck are you???”
“Urgh, I guess I lost track of time. I’m ready in a few seconds, I swear.”
“Better for you.”
“That’s Conan Gray's fault. Not mine.”
“Just come here!”
I ring off and I laugh. Davide has been my best friend for, like, eight years. We’re inseparable, even if we spend most of our time insulting each other. That’s our way of showing affection, apparently. After five minutes I’m outside with him. Davide’s hair is even curlier than usual - I’m SO envious of it, my hair is the straightest I’ve ever seen. I guess that’s the only straight thing about me, apparently.
“Hi. Sorry for being late” I say.
“Not that this is the first time. Shall we go? Mara is going to KILL us if we’re too late and I don’t want to apologize for your faults.”
“Well, we’re wasting time and getting even later standing here and… talking about getting late.”
“Glad to see that we’re in the philosopher mood today.”
“It’s just basic logic, don’t bother philosophy.”
Davide raises an eyebrow, then we walk towards Mara’s house, which is ten minutes far away from mine.
“Filippo is going to lose control if I win again, isn’t he?” Davide says while walking. Filippo is one of our friends - and I must say he has serious anger problems.
“Are you joking? You won three times in a row last year!”
“Giacomo won four times in a row.”
“And Filippo threw all the cards right on his face, don’t you remember?”
We burst into laughter and after two minutes we’re at Mara’s. When I walk in the house, Mara’s dogs, two wonderful white furballs called Tony and Lara, come to me, jumping and barking. They’re the most ADORABLE dogs I’ve ever seen - and the only ones I’m not afraid of, I guess. Mara is wearing an awful red Christmas sweater and I don’t lose the chance to make her notice how bad it is.
“Everybody should wear it! I mean, it’s Christmas. It’s tiiiiime!” Mara says, doing a terrible impression of Mariah Carey.
We go upstairs, in Mara’s giant room - her house is the biggest house I’ve ever seen! Everybody is there. Sophie and Anna, my neighbors, are chatting right next to the window. They’re probably gossiping about someone’s new partner. Filippo is sitting on the bed and he’s already mad. It will be a long, long evening with him, I know. Giulia is there, too, with her boyfriend, Andrea. I met them this summer and I must say they’re the funniest couple I’ve ever met! Then, there’s Tommaso, a guy from my highschool that is also dating Sophie, and Chiara, my dearest childhood friend.
It’s just in the end that I see Giacomo talking to someone on the phone. I didn’t expect him to be there, to be honest, since I haven’t seen him very much recently. I’ve never really understood the relationship between us. It’s something… different from a normal friendship, and I don’t really know if it is negative or positive. We met this summer and we suddenly liked each other. He was really interested in my life and he was really nice when I told him that I’m gay. He asked me a lot of times if I was, you know, dating someone or if I had a crush on someone and stuff like that. Private details about my life. When I told him about my ex-boyfriend, he discovered that he knew him (they attend the same school) and told me he was a dickhead. I still don’t know if he said it in order to be supportive or because he really thinks that. We had a long conversation on my birthday night and we talked until 3 am. I was a little bit drunk, I guess, but I still remember all of his words. I guess that was the moment I realized I had a crush on him - and I still do. After all the things that happened with my ex, I didn’t want to fall in love again or even LIKE somebody else, but Giacomo came into my life like a thunder and everytime we hang out we find ourselves talking and laughing, the others walking ahead. I don’t even know if there’s a particular thing that drives me crazy about him, but I can’t stop staring at him when we’re in the same place. One time at Sophie’s I told him if he had seen my ex at school and he had a strange reaction. He told me that I shouldn’t care about him since he only made me suffer, and that he didn’t want to see his ugly face again in the corridors. It was sweet and I was kind of surprised about that. All of these little things made me fall in love with him. I talked to my close friends about it, even Tommaso, who is one of his best friends, and everyone said that he is the straightest person that has ever existed and that I should not, you know, tell him that I like him, because I don't know how he would react. Anyway, not much time ago I really thought I was going to tell him I have a crush on him, but lately he has been elusive and he hasn’t spent much time with us at all. Something tells me that he’s dating a girl, but I don’t know if there’s a real reason for his behavior. Maybe it’s just, you know, a bad moment. That's why I didn’t expect him to come this evening.
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