Verlorene Liebe (Chapter 1 ,Part 3)

“Boo!” sadly enough I was actually scared by this pathetic scare.

“Natalia why would you do that!” Natalia was one of my good friends, or more importantly one of the few people I considered to be my real friend. We had only been friends for two years, but we are as close as people who have known each other their entire lives.

“Squeaks I’m going to miss you when you’re gone” she threw herself on me dramatically.

“Ha ha and I think I might actually miss people calling me squeaks” my friends started calling me squeaks in the sixth grade because of the way I screamed when I was scared, apparently it sounded like a high pitched squeak.

“Hey Talia have you seen Tristano?”

“Ummm you know what, I saw him not to long ago when I first walked in, come on lets go find him” we took each other’s hand and headed into the sea of people. It took us about twenty minutes, but we finally found Tristano. Unlike Natalia and me, Tristano and I had been friends for ten years, one of my longest friendships. He was also the only person I ever really confided in, he was also the creator of my nickname.

“Tano!”

“Squeaks stop calling me that!” he hugged me.

“Ha sure thing, as soon as you stop calling me squeaks”

“Never!” they both chimed in laughing. We eventually had to take our seats, luckily Natalia, Tristano, and I got to sit next to each other due to our last names. It took us a few minutes, but we managed to put or caps, gowns, and tassels on the correct way. There was a pre graduation lecture, and then we marched as a class out to the massive sanctuary.  No sooner had we sat down did the millions of speeches begin, but of course Tristano, Talia, and I did not pay attention. We talked in hushed whispers for the majority of the ceremony.

“Pssss. Hey did you two know that this place was built hundreds of years ago-“

“Well duh Tristano, everything in Rome was built hundreds of years ago” Talia and Tristano were always battling it out, mainly because of Talia’s constant sarcasm. I on the other hand had always been a spectator who took pleasure in the entertainment they constantly provide. On some odd occasions they acted like a normal couple and had moments, but those were about as common as a breeze in hell, except for it actually happened on occasion.

“Okay, could you guys at least not fight until after the ceremony?”

“Don’t look at me, I’m not the who starts these things, she is.”

“Oh yeah right!”

“Guys, shhhhh. Tristano just continue with you story please”

“Fine. So like I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, this church was built hundreds of years ago, but it is not Italian.” I’m a pretty gullible person, but even I found his story hard to believe. “Tristano we are in the middle of Italy, how is this place not an Italian church? It was built in Italy!” my whisper was fairly loud, and a few people turned in their seats to stare at me, making the day even merrier.

“I’m with Squeaks on this one Tristano, the church was built in Italy so-“

“Ah ha, this is where you two are wrong. This church was not built in Italy.” I looked at Talia and she looked at me, then we both looked at Tristano.

“How stupid do we look to you?”

“Um do you really want me to answer that?” being the aggressive person she was, Talia reached over me and punched his arm.

“ha ha ouch that hurt, I was just kidding, you two aren’t stupid, but I was being serious…about the church that is.” Talia turned completely around in her seat to face Tristano, I felt a bit awkward sitting in the middle.

“Okay oh knowledgeable one, where was the church built and how did it wind up in Rome hundreds of years ago.”

“Well no one really knows where the church was built, but legend has it that on the twenty- fourth night of August this acre of land was barren and when the villagers awoke the next day, this church was upon it. No one in the village claimed to hear or see anyone construct the church, so they thought it to be a blessing from the Lord. However, when they stepped inside, they noticed that there were statues and paintings of demon like creatures. Ever since that day, this place has been known as the devils house.” Tristano was right; it was odd that there were statues of evil looking creatures in the church. I had never seen that in any of the other churches in Rome.

“oooooo the devils layer…I didn’t know that Mrs. Lombardi had a layer.” Mrs. Lombardi was our crazed literature teacher. She would always go on and on about things that we didn’t care about, using words we didn’t understand to explain words we already didn’t understand.

“Ha ha nice one, but the legend isn’t true… is it Tristano?” Did I mention I was gullible?

“Oh of course it is squeaks, of course it is” Tristano always creeped me out.

“Will you stop looking at me like that? Just pay attention.” We all tuned back into the ceremony, well I tried at least. I couldn’t help but think about Tristano’s story. The sanctuary was larger than the entire church I attend. A gold trim lined the ceiling, which had a magnificent mural painted in the center. The mural looked like a portrait of a battle between various demons. There was a demonic looking creature surrounded by a raging fire, another by colossal waves of rushing water, and another creature was surrounded by mounds and mounds of earth.  There was another creature, but it didn’t look as demonic as the others, it was surrounded by clouds and what looked like rushes of wind.  I had never seen anything like it.

Verlorene Liebe (Chapter 1 ,Part 2)

Senior year was my best year of high school, not because I was a senior, or because it was my last year, or because all of the other reasons people have for loving their senior year, but because it was the first year in high school that I didn’t have nightmares about the crash. It was also the first year I didn’t agonize over some boy. I had always had a knack for choosing guys that I could never end up with, which only added to my emotional turmoil. This year was different though, I actually had a few good friends that I felt somewhat comfortable around, but that was all changing in less than two months. When it came to college, I chose a small college in Bressonone, Italy instead of the local university in Rome like my friends. I’m not sure why, but I just wanted to get away, sometimes I wondered why, seeing as I had friends for the first time, but then I was always reminded by my mother.

“Ana! What on earth, you look like you were living in the jungle for three years without a comb!” this was my mother’s reaction to me waking up one hour before my graduation and walking downstairs for a bowl of cereal before getting ready, my mother always blew things way out of proportion.

“Mother please”

“Oh mother please what? You look like a cave man!”

“Will you just breathe Godzilla, I just woke up. I’m going to get ready after I finish eating.”

“Ana we leave in thirty minutes! You have yet to do your hair, eyebrows, and don’t even get me started about your nails! For goodness sakes, could you at least have the decency to remove that hideous black nail polish once it starts chipping? You look like a hobo!” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at my mother when she went on about all my flaws. That’s one thing that always bothered me about my parents. They were quick to point out all my flaws, as if I myself were blind and couldn’t see them. It only made it worse, them telling me all the things that were wrong with me, I always wished my parents could have been the loving supportive type, but that couldn’t have happened even if I had a genie and a shooting star.

“Mother all I have to do is brush my hair, get dressed and grab my gown. Not everyone in this world cares about appearances as much as you do” I put my bowl in the sink and headed up stairs. It took me no more than twenty minutes to comb through my hair, put in a ponytail, comb out my bang and put on my stupid yellow dress that my mother had bought for me. My mother however, was completely disappointed with my appearance and dragged me into her bathroom and “worked her magic as quickly as she could”.

“Anabelle I don’t know why you insist on constantly wearing your hair in this unattractive ponytail! You look so much better with your hair down. I mean you were blessed with such long and beautiful black hair, you think you would do something with it, besides try to hide your face behind this ridiculous side bang. I mean really! It’s not necessary!” After eighteen years of my mother’s tangents, I learned to just keep my mouth shut and roll my eyes. The only thing that kept me sane was counting off the days until I left for college, I had seventy days left. My mother of course put us fifteen minutes behind, so my dad sped the whole way to the church. I wanted to get the whole graduation thing over with; I hated school and the activities that came along in the package. Ironically enough, I was graduating with honors, third in my class, despite my hatred of school. I guess studying was my only other option. My mother bragged to all of our neighbors about how I was graduating with honors, and even showed off my honors tassels when I received them from the school. She even held them for the entire car ride, along with my cap and gown, because apparently I would “create unnecessary wrinkles and creases”. When we pulled up to the front of the church, on time, I bolted out of the car, nearly leaving behind my cap and gown. I ran down the hall and around the corner to the room for all the graduates, but when I opened the door I realized that finding my friends in a room full of 700 people would be nearly impossible. Everyone was trying to put on caps and gowns, find their seats, talk to friends, and walk around all at the same time, in other words utter chaos.