Because Taylor inspires life - English version

Tell me why

I took a chance, I took a shot

and you might think I'm bulletproof, but I'm not

you took a swing, I took it hard

and down here from the ground I see who you are

During the last years, Serena never had problems with her female friends. She had found more than a girl to be intimate with, and she had let go high school's so called "friendships" that had only became a bunch of gossip, judgments and malice during her last year. To be honest, even after years, there was only one person that she missed sometimes.

She was Maria, the girl who, with an up-and-down relationship, had been her high school's best friend. Their friendship began in a casual way, during the autumn months of that first year so full of changes and new things. Serena had just sorted out of class because she wanted to talk with the other girls she had just met, and she ended up talking with a girl who remained all silent listening to the others, as if she was scared. She had a curious and weird figure: if the majority of the girls showed 14 years old (the right age), and some of them (like her) seemed still middle school's students, Maria seemed so much older. And not in the sense that, for clothes and attitude, she could show 16 or 17 years old... no, she was more like a 40 years old. She had light brown hair with an old fashioned cut, green eyes behind circular glasses and clothes that... beh, Serena'd rather have died instead than wearing them.

She did nothing but to cover up herself in long blue or beige skirts, mom-like sweaters, moccasins.

As you have maybe understood, Maria was a special character. She was extremely old-fashioned and religious: she didn't rebel towards anything; the Church, nor politics, nor everyday things like family or school seemed to upset her.

For Serena, all this was an amazing model that she'd never have reached. She fought with her parents, her brother, even her grandparents; she talked hours with her mates to show up her ideas; she took part to adult demonstrations with her friends only because she wanted to understand; she discussed everything in every group because some things seemed absolutely out of time to her. She wasn't mean: she was simply stubborn, and even more curious. She liked to explore everything, till the end. She had just begun to hang out with a group of boys and girls, friends of her friend Astrid, and she was an excellent listener of all the strange stories she had heard. She had met girls with divorced parents, who cut themselves, who had already had sex, who had been into drugs. She asked everyone: why do you do this? How do you feel? Maybe those people didn't fit so much with her, but she had always an idea about how to have fun with them without trespassing a certain limit.

But Maria... no, she didn't excite for anything, it was like she had already reached an adult lifestyle. She listened without a word to her mother (who behaved like a dictator), she played the part of the "everyone's bff" at school and she didn't hang out with anybody, except Serena and one of her neighbours. When Serena came to tell her all the stupid things that she and Astrid did, like going to parties on afternoon, dancing on the tables, spending hours trying new looks and hairstyles, hanging out with people even if they didn't know them, she just smiled with a permissive look and refused to go with them... like she couldn't, like there was an obstacle. And yet they were the same age...!

Despite what everyone could think, their friendship had been something sincere, at least for Serena's side. Maria listened to her, seemed to understand her; her quiet temper put her at ease; they both had a passion for classics and cinema, and they often went to see historic or fantasy films. More than everything, they both felt as they were romantics and unfortuned in love, and they often discussed it.