Salvatore || Kirk Hammett

Chapter 7 - Comme Un Boomerang

Looking around, sitting in a bar chair while drinking a glass of pure rum, the old and broken radio playing something, sitting alone with other drunks, watching from afar Lars chatting with women in the middle of the lively street of open-air bars in the Italian night, of one thing I am sure, this is the most decadent moment of my life.

Not even the nights after the divorce alone in hotel rooms and drying whiskey bottles with only suitcases and no home was as decadent as my state now.

And not even the crazy idea of coming to Pandino's night out to get drunk made me forget about Isabella. My head is on fire and not even alcohol has made me forget the dream about her.

Every second is alive in my head. Every bit of the dream playing in my mind like a movie I want to watch forever, the dream mixing with the memories of her that I have collected in the last 4 or 5 days, the drink already detonating my notion of space and time, detonating my mind, I just couldn't erase Isabella. The girl of breathtaking beauty is still burning in my thoughts, driving me crazy.

And I was already so drunk, the heat making everything worse, that I was already reflecting on the lyrics of the cheesy song playing behind me. 

Je sens des boums et des bangs
Agiter mon coeur blessé
L'amour comme un boomerang
Me revient des jours passés
A pleurer les larmes dingues

Pure decadence, Hammett.

So drunk and stoned that I didn't notice when Lars showed up.

"Hey, did you find anyone you're interested in?" Lars asked "I found some nice girls over there. Come talk to them," he smiled and then noticed my drunken, sad, depressed face. I had zero desire to move and look at any face other than Isabella's. "You're not in the mood, are you?"

"No. Your plan to distract me isn't working."

"Are you still thinking about Bella?"

"Yes. All day long, every second I'm thinking about her, she's driving me crazy," I drank some more and stared at the floor. "I don't think I've ever felt like this, obsessed to have someone, to know someone. I want to know everything about her, I want to hear her talk for hours and hours, I want to look at her, see what she does, everything about her. It's a desire, a curiosity so big that it eats me alive, I go crazy, agonizing, freaking out, dreaming, sweating."

"She has a beauty that could stop the traffic, that's a fact. Kirk, you know what I think?" Lars softened his voice, actually giving me some decent advice and not the nonsense he keeps saying. He took a sip of his drink, "It's not a forbidden relationship. You can have her, it's just that you're creating barriers in your mind. I know you're afraid of these feelings, afraid of the situation, afraid of her conservative parents, I know you've just gotten out of a divorce and your life is a mess, I know you haven't been happily married and you've lived a long time without loving anyone and I think Isabella is a reflection of this, you're finally interested in someone again, you're enchanted, excited, interested again for the first time in years. And I know you want to get your head straight and have peace so you can start over when we get back, but Kirk, Isabella can do you some good, you haven't fallen in love and you haven't been happy in such a long, long time that you deserve to give in, you deserve to feel and give in to desire, you deserve to be happy again. I know that you don't want to get into trouble, I know that Isabella's family is complicated and these are different situations than the ones we live in, after all it's the interior of Italy, the people are different. I know that we are leaving in 40 days. I know you think Isabella is too young for you, but Kirk, I'm sure she's not naive, she's already grown up, older, experienced in parties and very dangerous," he smiled, "And if she wants you too, then go, accept it, even if it's a hidden summer romance, but allow yourself to live it, you've already had such a complicated and boring life in the last few years, now you deserve to give yourself the pleasure of living, of falling in love, of feeling everything. And if it goes wrong, if her father kills you, or if you fall in love for real and she does too, or if you want to bring the girl with you afterwards, that's another story, one thing at a time, then you think about the future, about the consequences, but now, in these 40 days that we still have here, Kirk, live, feel, allow yourself to live, I'm sure she wants it too, you're both adults. And if she wants you too, she is 22 years old, Kirk, she is an adult, she knows what she wants, she is zero naive, I can assure you of that. You haven't felt it for 7 years, don't kill it inside of you now that you're feeling it again and strongly."