Where there is nothing strange, I’m just a fool
Sunday morning and again rays of sunlight on my face; fortunately, the first week of classes turned out to be calm. I'm already sitting in the kitchen, listening to "Happy" at full volume.
— Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth, — my singing could probably be heard even by Martians.
It seems this song has changed because I didn’t hear this strange sound before. Well, of course! It’s just the ringtone on my phone, nice to know that I’m still needed by someone.
— Good morning, Della, how are you? — Elizabeth didn’t wait for my response and without pausing continued. — No arguments, I’m waiting for you at the café in five minutes, bye.
I didn’t even manage to say a word because she had already hung up. My brain began to actively process the information just received, trying to grasp what was happening at all.
— Seriously? Did you disconnect? — there was no point in shouting. The dark screen of the phone couldn’t answer my questions at all. I had nowhere to go. Ella’s words were like a law to me. So I started to get ready, trying to act as quickly as possible. Today is quite cloudy and windy, so I put on black straight jeans, a striped sweater, just in case threw on a black leather jacket as black as coal and grabbed the bag that stood on the stand in the hallway, and finally dashed out of the apartment. For some time I struggled to get the keys into the lock, even though they were protesting. And when I finally closed the door, I suddenly remembered the phone left on the table. I had to go back…
To my deep surprise, Elizabeth was glowing, talking to Damiano with a smile from ear to ear; she was wearing a long black dress and a knitted white sweater. As always stunning, of course, her stylist is doing his job to the fullest.
— You made it; let’s hurry. Something strange happened here, — she chirped as she caught sight of me at the door.
— I’m already here, what’s going on? What happened? — I didn’t know whether to panic or not, so I sat down at the bar counter, impatiently glancing at my friends.
— Look who liked my photo! And even commented! — she shouted, handing me her phone.
Seriously, she pulled me out over some guy? But on the screen, there was the profile of the same brunette I saw yesterday on Leo's profile. But how? How did he find Elizabeth?
No, no, no, it can't be… I quickly took out my phone and logged into Instagram. I opened Leo's page and scrolled through each of his photos, checking if I had accidentally liked any of his posts. But it seemed all clear; however, how did his friend end up on Elizabeth's page and like our joint photo? Something seems suspicious to me. Although of course what piqued Ella's interest the most was that the brunette's name is Nick, short for Nicolas (I’m not making this up, it’s written on his profile). Well, she also couldn’t stop chirping about how handsome he is, what beautiful eyes he has, muscles, and other similar nonsense that didn’t interest me but did interest Damiano, who, oblivious, was genuinely happy for Elizabeth. But I thought about something entirely different; the internal voices didn't stop for a moment, saying that something was off here. Of course! His sister... On her last joint photo with Leo, there’s my red heart. For a second, I forgot how to breathe, which terrified me even more.
— I wonder how he found me? — my friend's voice became clear again as she continued discussing Nicolas.
— Maybe... — I didn’t let Damiano finish.
— It’s urgent! — I suddenly exclaimed, trying to draw attention to myself without revealing my anxiety. While I was managing to do so not very well. Although I wasn’t sure if I was concerned about how embarrassed I looked right now.
They both turned their surprised gazes to me.
— I made an unbelievable mistake, — and here I began to laugh hysterically.
I told them everything from our first to the last meeting, about the handkerchief and my like. It took Ella and Damiano no less than a minute to realize how deeply I had gotten myself into trouble. And when time passed, they started laughing loudly, attracting the attention of other visitors. I felt my cheeks flush with anger and shame.
— What’s so funny? — they’re always looking for something to laugh at, and this was really annoying me right now.
— You really don’t understand what happened to you? — Elizabeth asked through her giggles.
I continued to glare at them angrily. Who do they think I am?
— Does she not get that someone is openly flirting with her?! — Damiano joined her, losing control over his laughter. I was even angrier at this scene.
This couple seemed entirely satisfied with my openly embarrassed and simultaneously angry face, as well as with their simply "brilliant" discovery.
— Whiskey with lemon, it can't be that our nun finally got someone to knock on her door! — Damiano looked at me with wide eyes. It seemed like he was about to burst into applause.
— What could this possibly be about? I just joked about Cinderella and that’s it, — I protested categorically. I really didn’t need this for some silly joke to have such consequences.
— I think he already found what he was looking for, — completely confidently brushed off my musings Elizabeth and winked at Damiano, who just smiled at her in response and turned back to me, his eyes sparkling.
— How? I'm too closed off, — although I wasn’t so sure about what I was saying and doing anymore.
— Forget it: your Instagram is a board where every photo describes every part of you. Where you work, where you study, how you live, what you love, and who you communicate with. It’s not the same as just seeing how you look in some dress from Dior or in a new bikini on a beach in Miami, like some do. Don't you realize your Instagram is your face as a personality? — with a barely noticeable note of sympathy, it seemed to me, asked Gennari.
— Damn.. — I immediately blurted out in response.
— Even he won’t help you, — mischievously smiling, said Ella and moved her eyebrows intensely. I waved her off.
— My friend is going to have a real boyfriend! — Damiano shouted so loud that everyone around started to whistle and applaud.
Merlin, what a shame. I tried to cover my face with my chestnut hair. I needed to escape from here. Immediately. Where to? Anywhere! I wasn’t going to give my number to a person I had seen a few times in my life and barely talked to. He still hadn’t made a peep about himself, and now it was almost noon. So he had just as much time to find me.
But I still don’t believe he’ll succeed. It feels something dreamlike and strange.
It was fifteen minutes to twelve on the clock.
I convinced Ella to swap apartments for one night, aiming to eliminate my "problem" (for some reason, I thought that this way Leo definitely wouldn’t be able to find me personally), and Elizabeth agreed to spend the night in my apartment because I didn’t want to leave her unattended. I don’t know how I persuaded her. She probably thought that Leonardo would find me anyway. And no matter how hard I tried to dismiss that thought, I was already thinking the same way.
It was too early to sleep, and there was too much work for tomorrow. I needed to bring some drawings to the university and prepare a presentation, and at work, the spring collection show was supposed to take place in a week, so I had plenty to do. As well as reasons to be nervous.
Sketches and drawings always came easy to me; I had no issues with imagination. Once in childhood, I took my mom's red lipstick from the drawer of the dressing table and painted the wall in my room with flowers and patterns. I don’t remember my dad laughing louder than when I stood there, red from head to toe and smeared, with a serious expression on my face, declaring that I wasn’t involved in the mess. I smiled to myself.
Work was more difficult. A designer has not only to come up with clothing models but also to be able to produce them oneself. I hadn’t had problems with that yet because I worked at a big fashion house, so I was exempted from it (we didn’t get along too well with the sewing machine sometimes). But it was necessary to make a prototype to see how this clothing model would look, and that was quite a challenge.
I was just struggling with a thread that could not lay flat (Ella’s machine, unfortunately, was different from mine, and I couldn’t figure out how it worked at all) when there was a knock at the door. Who is so old-fashioned? For whom is the bell hanging? And who can come so late?
I sluggishly approached the door and looked through the peephole. No one. What a silly joke?
I tensed up and ran to the kitchen. The frying pan looked massive… That will do. Grabbing it, I dashed into the corridor. It was dark and quiet in the entrance hall, only voices from the street could be heard. Slowly opening the door, I accidentally bumped into something.