Letters to Italy

4. the invitation

It was over, the most beautiful moment of my life. I couldn't stop thinking about my 'look into the eyes' with Gianluca. Just like my sister Liene. She couldn't stop talking about it out loud. But I wasn't really listening. I only could think about Gianluca.

"Aline! Alineeee!" It was Jonas. "You're dreaming, I guess?"

Suddenly Liene stopped talking. "Dreaming? About what?"

"No, nothing", I said, hoping they would stop asking.

"C'mon sis, you are dreaming about Il Volo!" Liene said. "What else, even I am dreaming about them. And I'm not even an Il Volo fan like you!"

"IlVolover!" I said a little bit angry. But of course she couldn't know that we call ourselves like that.

We walked away from our places, to the exit, when I saw a huge group of screaming girls in the aisle. I opened my eyes and ears to find out what was happening. Probably a group of fangirls, screaming for attention, with one of the boys (or maybe all three) in the middle. "Il Volo in the middle!", I thought, suddenly realizing Il volo probably was walking right there. I stiffened and looked to the screaming girls to find any sign of a boy from Il Volo in between.

"Yeah, right there, I see Gianluca. Or no, it's Ignazio." I couldn't really recognize them, but I was sure they (or one of them) were in there.

"Heeeey, ciao amico!" I heard my brother yell. I looked away and I looked right at Piero. He was shaking hands with Jonas, with MY brother! I couldn't believe it. This was all true. Of course because why would Jonas lie about it?

"Should I walk closer to them?" I asked myself. "No, I can stay here until someone needs me. But he's one of my biggest idols?! What now. I'm too shy to walk over and just say hi. Even that little word will reveal how shy and nervous I am."

Liene hadn't ever had problems with being social and spontaneous. She stood already next to Piero. She had a big smile on her face that couldn't hide her enthusiasm. You always immediately knew what she was thinking, what she was feeling. I wish I was a bit more like her. Unfortunately our parents didn't share the characteristics equally between their kids.

"Over there, you have my sister Aline." Jonas was introducing me to Piero Barone! How cool was that?! His eyes looked right into my eyes while I walked closer to them. "Ehm, hello." I said. "That was a very nice performance!" I said. Inside me there was a wave of happiness. "I just said 'hello' to Piero! I just said hello! And even more, I said a small sentence!"

The sentence was even more than I would've hoped. I was always proud if I said a sentence instead of only 'hi', 'yes' or 'no'. But I preferred someone asking me things, so I could just answer and not have to say something the person in front of me wouldn't like.

Luckily Piero was very spontaneous. He quickly kissed my cheek and asked "are you an Ilvolover?"

"Yes, I think so" I said. Why did I say that? I think so. I was absolutely positive about it! I was one of the biggest Ilvolovers right now on this planet! I could be the president of the biggest fanclub, the founder of a whole Il Volo nation! Okay, now I was exaggerating but the answer 'I think so'  was weird. I refused to think about it any longer, my total attention went back to Piero.

"Oh, I love to meet our IlVolovers! They are the best!" Piero said smiling at me. The only thing that I could do was smiling back at him. Oh god, he looked precious! And then I realized he just kissed my cheek. Hopefully Gianluca would do that too if we ever meet each other.

Piero looked back to Jonas. "Hey you know what?" he said very enthusiast. "You guys should all stay and hang out with us!"

"Oh yeah, cool! Good idea, that would be fun!" Jonas replied. He looked to me with an expression like 'You see, I DO know these guys and we're going to hang out with them. That's what you wanted, right?' I admit, it's a lot for in one expression, but my brother was the master of 'making an expression and you instantly know what he means'.