Letters to Italy

44. tonight

"Goodmorning la mia principessa!" I heard someone whisper into my ear. And that made me realize it was the first time I woke up in my new home, in Italy. I turned my face to him and smiled to show him how happy I was to wake up next to him. He kissed my forehead and put his arm around me. "This feels so right!" he said and the only thing I could do was agree with him so I nodded. "Do you want to eat something?" he asked while taking my hair that was hanging over my eyes between his fingers to put it carefully on place again. It made me think about my disease. One without a cure. So it could always come back. Main cause: stress. But how I was feeling on that morning, it was almost impossible for the disease to ever come back.

"Yes, I would like to eat something. What do you have?" I asked. "Oh, don't tell me my little princes is choosy!"

"Yes, indeed. I can be very picky. Is that a problem?" I laughed, curious whether he had some food in his fridge or not. "Well, actually... I don't have a lot of food here. You'll have to take whatever there is," he said with a guilty look on his face. "It's because I was too busy with Il Volo things."

"Don't worry about it," I said. "There's only one thing I want right now," I said while pulling him close to me and covering him with kisses. "And you know, I'm very picky!" I laughed and then I whispered soft into his ears, "that's a compliment!" To thank me about this wonderful compliment he kissed me too. But then he abruptly paused.

"That's not really a balanced breakfast!" he said serious, but I could see he was joking.

"Oh, but this is just the beginning," I said before I kissed him again, my hands through his hair and his hand doing the same with my hair.

That afternoon

We had nothing to do that day, so we walked in the streets of Abruzzo. "It's beautiful here. And so different from Belgium."

"So you feel good here?"

"Of course I do! It's amazing! And warm!"

"Yes but it's summer. Then it's normal that the weather is like this."

"Not in Belgium!" I laughed and then we got interrupted by a familiar voice. "Hellooow!"

"Jonas! Carlotta. What a coincidence!" I shouted. "I'm so happy to see you again bro."

"Yeah, me too. And Gianluca, nice to see you too of course!" They shaked hands and Gianluca kissed Carlotta on the cheek. "What are you doing?" Jonas asked curious.

"Don't you see that?" I laughed. "We're walking! In Abruzzo."

"Oh, yeah, I think I could've find that out myself! So...I actually wanted to call you to invite you two for dinner at our place," he said happy.
"Oh nice!" Gianluca said. Although I really loved the idea of being with a part of my real family again, I wanted to be alone with Gianluca on our first full day in Italy. "But we have plans already! So if you're talking about another day, that's okay," Gianluca added. "What?" I thoughed confused, "did I forget something?" I couldn't remember we already had something to do that night. So I kept digging in my memories to find what he was talking about while Gianluca kept talking with my brother and his wife. No, I couldn't imagine what we had planned.

"So next Saturday it is. We'll see you there. But can you send me the address some time?" Apparently the conversation was already at the end. "So we'll see you then! And we'll let you two alone now. Ciao!" Jonas said while winking to me. He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and then they both left in the other direction than we were walking. Gianluca wrote it down in the agenda of his phone and then we walked further. The only thing I could think about was what we had planned that evening.

"Gianluca?" I said curious. "Aline?"

"What actually do we have to do today? I mean, you said to Jonas we already had plans. But as much as I remember, there's nothing about plans for tonight. Or maybe you just said that because you wanted to be alone or so or..." He did it again. After three years, he did it again. His finger on my lips and I couldn't say a thing anymore. "You'll see tonight!" he said. "But it's already 'tonight'! Almost." I said but I knew it was only 5 pm.

"You'll see tonight!" he said again, what made it obvious I really had to wait to know it. Gianluca started talking about something else, which was good to make me stop trying to ask what the plan for that night was. "Do you want to go with me on tour? Or do you want to stay home during the tour?" It was weird to hear him say 'home'. I still had to get used to that. But what an unnecessary question. "Of course I want to join you on the tour! I'll follow you anywhere!"
"Oh no, why did I want you to come to Italy again?" he laughed. I gave him a fake hit on his shoulder. "No, no, haha, I didn't mean it!" he laughed. "I know!" I smiled and then I gave his shoulder a kiss to cure the pain I eventually gave him, not on purpose for sure!

"Okay, serious now. Then you have to be ready in two weeks because we're going on a European tour first."
"Yes!" I said because I was happy we still stayed in the neighborhood of my old home. We even were going to Belgium. So I could see my family already after one month. And they could come to the concert too. "I'm looking forward to it!"