Letters to Italy

32. Am I dying?

That was the moment I woke up. Another thing? In my head I made a list of some possibilities. Pregnant? No, that was impossible. Cancer? Or another bad disease. A very rare disease? Or perhaps I was literally dying from lovesickness.

"Am I dying?" I asked shocked. He laughed. "No, no, it's not that bad!" Not that bad. But there still was something. "Your hair is falling out", he said. Without listening further what he had to say I already thought I knew it. "Oh no, it's cancer!" I said.

"No, it's not because your hair falls out, you have cancer. Besides the hair that falls out when you have cancer is because of the cure for it."

I immediately felt more at ease again. No dying and no cancer and not that bad. But...what was it then?

"You have alopecia areata," he told us as if that would explain everything. I still didn't know what disease I really had. Only that my hair was falling out, what I never noticed before. I always thought the amount of hair I found in the bathtub was normal.

Finally the doctor explained what my disease meant. "But in your case, it's not very bad. You have a small bald patch on your head. But you don't really see it so you are lucky. So alopecia areata is an autoimmune disease. The immune system attacks the hair follicles and suppresses or stops hair growth. Unfortunately there is no cure for alopecia areata. But of course there are cures to make your hair grow back. But it can always fall out again. If you don't want it to happen again...," the doctor said. Was he serious? Of course I didn't want it to happen again. "...you have to avoid the cause for it. In your case it is very obvious what that is. Stress!"

I immediately knew why it all happened. The stress I had was because of Gianluca. Or probably because of not being together with Gianluca. I realized I had to think about my previous decision. Maybe I had to take it back. But what if Gianluca had another girlfriend by now? Okay no, than my brother would've told me. No, it was not worth the risk. I still believed I had to hold on. Even though my hair was falling out. I never expected the pain I felt in my heart would become a real physical disorder. Perhaps Gianluca had the same thing? Maybe his hair was falling out too. That would be very bad. He had such beautiful hair.

The doctor gave us some further explanations but I wasn't really listening. I already heard the most important things.

"So are you ready?" the doctor asked all of a sudden. "For what?"

"Injections in your head."

"What?" I thought. "It's really becoming a nightmare." I nodded to him but actually I wasn't ready at all.

"So here we go. This is the first one." The first one? How many injections was he going to give me? I suddenly wished I had listened to his explanation. I felt something prick into my head. It felt really weird. Where was the needle going? Wasn't there a skull underneath the surface of my head. "The second one." He kept giving me pricks with small evil needles. I wished Gianluca was there to hold my hand because this was literally painful. "Three." I had the feeling he was never going to stop. "Four." He was going to make my head explode. Could I actually trust this creepy doctor? My mom was sitting next to me and I was awake, that was sure. "Five." So it wasn't a nightmare. But actually it was. I missed Gianluca so much. "Six." If we could just be together, all the problems would fade away. "Seven." I knew it wasn't possible. "Eight." The doctor was never going to stop. My head hurt a lot. Was a doctor or a cure not meant to let the pain decrease or so? "Nine." He only made some more pain. "And the last one."

"Finally." I thought because ten injections in my head were more than enough. I didn't even know that was possible.

After the injections, the doctor said that I had to avoid stress. I nodded, little did he know my life was based on stress. Gianluca. Lovesick. Bad grades. So I knew that wasn't really possible.

Gianluca's POV

After two months there still were people that asked why I was crying that night. I just told them it was because of a personal reason. That was not a lie. And I didn't even had to explain further what that reason was. Although everyone asked about it.

I still missed her as much as a day ago, a week ago, a month ago, 10 months ago. And nothing could change that. I tried a lot. Piero and Ignazio tried to help me to forget her. But nothing really helped. I admit I had a nice evening when we went to the beach together. And I really enjoyed myself hearing Ignazios new jokes all the time. But after ten seconds of smiling I already was thinking about Aline again. Sometimes I thought it would be a great idea to leave everything and go to Belgium to meet her again. To tell her I still love her. And that would be the happy end. No of course not. I needed to respect her choice. It was better for her. But for sure it was not better for me. But I had to let her go. She needs someone better than me.