He rolled his eyes at me as the breeze shook his hair. “Why does everyone always say that? Be yourself. What if I don’t want to? Like, there are some times when I’d prefer to be anyone but me. And what does it even mean to be yourself? I think a lot of people hide behind those words to justify being selfish and not worrying about the effects of their actions on others.”
There was something sweet in his indignation. I asked him, “Who would you like to be then, if you don’t want to be yourself?”
“I don’t know. Depends on the moment. A famous actor. A porn star. A cat?”
“Really? A cat?”
“Cats are the best animals in the world,” he said. “What about you? Who would you like to be?”
“How can you ask me that? You’re the one person right now who knows the crisis I’m going through.”
“The only one?” he asked, clearly pleased. I nodded. “So that makes me your confidant. Does that mean you’re going to tell me all your dirtiest private fantasies?”
I flipped him the bird and he grabbed me around the waist and picked me up, eliciting a shout. A wave of emotion ran through me. I didn’t fight back, though. I let him wrap his arms around me. The murmur of the sea, the scent of summer, made it impossible to put up resistance.
And for the first time in ages, I felt like me.
Just me.
And I didn’t want to be anyone else.
26
The morning sun crept through the wooden slats of the blinds in thin golden rays that divided the room in a pattern of light and shadows. I opened my eyes, blinked, and tried to focus. I felt as if I’d slept a whole day straight. And I had, in a way.
The day before, Lucas and I had returned home after dawn. We were exhausted, and we shut the doors to our rooms and slept until late in the afternoon. Then we made dinner and got comfy on the sofa, dozing off at times and at times watching TV.
We barely talked. We just sat there. The silence was comfortable. There was no need to fill it with words.
I did catch him watching me, though. And he caught me watching him, too. Then we’d freeze. But we didn’t take it any further. We wanted to. And we were scared that we would.
Restrained.
But the question wasn’t if; it was when…
I got out of bed and dragged myself to the shower. With the hot water streaming down my face, I swore to myself I’d never drink again. My stomach was still killing me.
I dried my hair with the towel, leaving it down, and looking at myself in the mirror. It was the same reflection I’d seen a milliontimes looking back at me, but there was something new there: a glimmer in my eyes, color in my cheeks. Something throbbing, something light, something alert, something living.
A few minutes later, someone knocked at the front door. I opened up and found Giulio standing there.
“Hey,” he said, and I struggled to come up with a reply. Even the simplest words were hard to get out with him there. Maybe because I was too busy staring. It was almost as if I thought the answers to all my questions lay in his face. Only after I’d blinked a couple of times did I notice the cruising bike behind him, leaned against the wall, cream-colored, with a little basket and a pink helmet inside it.
He looked over at it and said, “It used to belong to my sister, and I thought maybe you could use it while you’re here.”
“For real?”
“She never touches it.”
“That’s amazing. Thank you.”
“It’s no car,” he added with a shrug, “but you can get around on it, go to town or whatever you feel like.”
A strange feeling overcame me. Every kid dreams of getting a bike from their dad. It was happening to me more than a decade late, but who cared? A world of possibilities opened before me. “It’s amazing,” I said. “Seriously, thank you.”
“No worries. Be careful, though, all right?”
“I will. I promise.”
