From London to Rome

Chapter 45

Skylar

Do you remember how your mother or your grandmother or your aunt or whoever may have said it always told you that jealousy isn't a good look? Well, let's just say I'm not looking good right now. You have different degrees of being jealous and I've reached a new record. Can anyone call The Guinness Book of World Records?

Every day there seem to be new pictures of Luca and that snob of a girl. I don't even know her, but she's going after my man and I won't have it. I trust Luca more than I trust myself sometimes, so I'm not afraid something will happen. But I haven't forgotten the stunt Luca's management tries to pull a few days ago. Luca refused to do anything that makes him spend any more time with her. Still, I hate all these people online saying they make such a cute couple. Bitch, they ain't no couple.

What I hate even more is how perfect she seems to be. Long, shiny hair. Perfect makeup. Slim and tall figure. She has everything that I've always wanted. And here I am, sitting in bed in my pyjamas looking like a mess while eating a tub of chocolate ice cream.

I've been ranting to Madison and Tess all day already. They had to endure me complaining about Luca being gone and Sydney being in the same city as him for hours. On occasions like this I'm really happy I don't have to keep this relationship a secret from my friends anymore. I don't know how I would have gotten through this missing-Luca period without my friends.

Hailey is more than happy to talk about Luca with me all day and night. She is still fangirling over him and I'm kind of afraid to have them meet in real life. Their phone introduction included a whole lot of screaming from Hailey's side. She's been looking into Sydney trying to find ugly pictures or something to make me feel better. I'm happy to have a sister like her. She always manages to cheer me up, no matter what's going on.

Abby, on the other hand, is super-rational about it trying to offer advice. She has met Luca and convinces me of the fact that Sydney is not someone who matches his vibe. Unfortunately, she can't talk to me for very long because she has a date to get ready for. She won't tell me with who, but that's only fair because I didn't tell her about Luca at first either. I'm sure she'll tell me when she's ready to share her mystery guy.

By the time I'm done ranting for the day, Luca calls me. I know he had work stuff earlier, so he probably has a lot of ranting to do himself. I can't believe how his mother played him like this. I would have expected her to try to fix her relationship with her son, but she only made it worse. She even managed to get her other child to get mad at her as well. Adrina called me a few days ago and we went to have coffee together. Just like Luca, she is angry at their mum for setting Luca up like this. I'm glad to have Adrina on my side, at least I know we're not in this alone. And I'm glad to have a good relationship with Adrina. She means a lot to Luca so I'm happy we can be friends.

"Today was terrible. I was stuck with her all damn morning and I feel like the life had been sucked out of me, after being run over by a dozen trucks and suffering a slow and painful death."

"I'm sure it wasn't that bad. Just remember that it's almost over, she will be gone soon."

"But is she ever really gone? I thought I got rid of her weeks ago, but here we are. And it was that bad. She was complaining about how her nail polish was the wrong shade of red for over an hour. An hour! Luckily, when that topic was done, she switched to the topic of handbags. Did you know that the new snake leather handbag is definitely worth twenty thousand pounds? Apparently, the snakes are bred just for these bags. How fascinating."

"Okay, that does sound bad. Can't you just put your earphones in when she's talking to you? I doubt she will notice."

"I bet she wouldn't. All her brain can process is useless, annoying, superficial crap."

"Let's talk about something more fun. How is the rest of the job going?"

"It's going good, I like doing the shows. I'm meeting some of my friends here tomorrow so I'm looking forward to that. I walked past this vintage-looking bookshop a few days ago and I had some time this morning so I went back to have a look inside. You would have loved it. So many books. Old ones, new ones, walls filled with them."

"That sounds lovely. We should make a list of all the bookshops we want to visit together."

For the rest of the night, we discuss books and bookstores. We end up with a very long list of stores we want to go to. I guess we'll have to take a lot of trips.