Letters to Italy

22. grande amore

The next day, I woke up with bruises and scratches all over my arms and legs, because we played soccer for over two hour and of course, I had to fall some more times (against the will of Gianluca). But it was all worth it and Gianluca didn't ignore me this time.

"I have the perfect cure for that!" he said, his eyes sparkling. "Un bacio!" He gave a kiss on the little scratch on my arm. "Well, I immediately feel much better!" I smiled and that made him smile too, with his little dimples in his cheeks. Cute.

It was already our last full day again. And the feelings came. Again. Gianluca noticed it. He felt the same, he said.

"I counted the days!" he suddenly said.

"What?"

"I counted the days after tomorrow until your last exam! 5 September."

"And what's the result?" I asked but I didn't know whether I actually wanted to know it.

"39"

"Nooo!" I cried.

He touched my face with his hands. "We're gonna count the days together! Before you know it's over. And I hope I'll be able to come to Belgium on day 40!"

"I really hope it too," I said with my eyes red. His comforting kisses were really helpful. And I kissed him back. Also to cheer him up. But also because we had one day left to do that.

In the afternoon, we went to the beach again. We talked a lot. About things in life. Important things. That's how we came back to the subject of me living in Belgium and he touring the world and being Italian.

"It would be easier if I just lived in Italy", I said because that was the hard truth. "If I did, a few of our problems would be solved immediately! Including the biggest one!"

"Distance..." he added.

"But what are the others?"

"Then I didn't had to learn Italian! If I was born in Italy of course."

In the meantime we walked over the beach, our feet in the water again. His hand over my shoulder and my head very close to his. He turned his head to me and looked a little bit shocked. "I actually never thought about that. But...it's true. If you move to Italy someday, you really need to speak some Italian. Not everyone here can speak English!"

"But that's not the only problem", I said with a sad face. "If we want to have real deep conversations and if we want to express ourselves very good, then English is not enough. Neither is Italian, neither is Dutch or French or whatever other language. We need to speak the same language!"

"Well, now we speak the same language!" He didn't understand completely what I wanted to say.

"No!...I mean yes! But we need to have the same mother language to communicate well!"

He still didn't got it. "Some things I can explain very well in Dutch. Only in Dutch! And you will have that with Italian. And our English is not good enough to tell everything what we really want."

"But we speak the same language!" he said.
"You see, that's exactly what I mean. It seems like I can't really explain what I mean. And this should even be easy to explain. There are other things. About more important subjects, we can't communicate about like we do in our mother language!"

He put his finger on my lips again and I knew he was going to try to comfort me. I knew the point I wanted to make wasn't as good as the one he was going to make.

"We speak the same language! It's the language of love!" He kissed me in my neck and then looked very deep into my eyes. "Language. It's not as important as the love we feel! And it's not a problem as big as the one of living in other countries. And the first moment I am free, I'll try to learn some Dutch. But you're right. I'll probably never can fully express me with it. And you know what, our English can always improve! And we will learn new words every day again and again."

"You're the sweetest person on earth! But you really don't have to learn Dutch for me" I said. He always knew how to comfort me. How to make me laugh again. But I didn't want him to learn a totally new language only for me. It would take ages until he could speak full sentences Dutch. So it was better he spent his time on something else. Something more important. Because I got his point, language wasn't as important as trying to find some time to see each other again.

"Okay, I get it", I smiled. "But when I maybe move to Italy, I'll try to speak Italian too, and not only the language of love because I don't want to look like a fool to your Italian friends.

"I'm okay with that!" he laughed.

"But why do I have to move? You can live in Belgium too! You probably wouldn't even be recognized a lot! Not in the beginning, at least."

"It doesn't matter right now!" he said. He probably didn't want to say it out loud, that Belgium wasn't an option. But I understood, of course Belgium was not the right solution. He would be far away from Italy or from America. And it was also not as good as England, where Il Volo sometimes recorded some songs too. The countries are not even next to each other.

"But, come on, let's just enjoy this moment!" he smiled, embracing me tighter an giving me kisses on my forehead.

that evening

"Aline!" Gianluca came towards me while I was doing the dishes together with his mom and Ernesto. I was surprised because he took the towel out of my hands and led me immediately to the garden. "What are you doing?"

"You'll see! In a minute." He made me very curious. I looked everywhere around me to find a hint of what was about to happen. I couldn't see anything. There was no one else.

Gianluca put me on a chair. "What..."

"Just wait and see! If I'm not back in 30 seconds, you can leave the chair. And I'm only saying that because you are way to curious to just wait and sit there, but try to stay at least 30 seconds. I'll probably be back by then!" He kissed my nose, a place he never kissed before.

"A presto!" he said, waving in my direction. "UNO, DUE..." he started counting in my place while he was already walking away.

"27, 28..."

There he was. I immediately noticed that he changed his clothes. From casual clothes to a black suit with silver blue details.

"My sweet principessa, amore mio, I have a message for you...but I'm sometimes better in singing it." He said. "So I invited my two best friends to join me and to sing you a song. For your birthday! Because sometimes people get concert tickets for birthdays too, well this is just like that, but it's a concert only for you!" He pointed at me like he used to do during singing his songs.

So I was curious which song they would sing. From the first note I already knew it. It was the powerful 'Grande Amore'! The song that should've won at Eurovision. The song I listened to a thousand times. The song I wanted to hear a thousand times more. The song I could sing along although I didn't speak Italian yet. The song I always linked to Gianluca...because he was my grande amore!

It was wonderful, I must have been in heaven that moment.

"Tu sei il mio unico grande amore" At that sentence, I pointed with a very serious face at Gianluca. Just like he was going to do, I was sure about that. He was always very serious during singing, very emotional. But apparently he didn't saw my little imitation from him coming and found it so funny he started laughing. The very long note at the end of that sentence came out in pieces. It was more a very long and weird laugh. Piero and Ignazio struggled too, with singing the note. They had so much fun during the song. And I did too. This was a moment I could write on top of my list 'most magical moments in life'.

When it ended, I didn't sit still on my chair. I ran toward Gianluca, jumped in his arms and thanked him for the magical moment. Of course I was Piero and Ignazio thankfull too. "This is the best present ever! Well, after being here with you for 5 days of course!" Gianluca and I smiled passionately to each other. Both knowing, there was indeed nothing better than that.