A dark room, comfortable red velvet armchairs, many people, many smiling faces of children, many voices: one on top of the other, a loud noise; the clicks and flashes of the cameras, cameras filming people chosen for interviews, everything made you feel like a big star, maybe you were becoming one or maybe all that wasn't for you...
A girl sitting in the center was looking around, as if looking for something, someone... she didn't even know what. She was outside of that noise, of that crowd, she didn't hear anything or rather, she didn't want to, she heard too well and was able to recognize everyone's voices distinctly in that confusion: she heard conversations that didn't belong to her. She waited in the shadows, like a cat ready to pounce on its prey, but she didn't know what that feeling was… inside her there was a worse chaos than outside her. She spoke only if asked and responded only if called... One hundred, perhaps a thousand faces, passed before her eyes, friendly faces, acquaintances, some strangers, some nice, some less so, but it wasn't up to her to judge... then her gaze stopped on someone...
A boy was leaning against a pillar... tall, with glasses and staring into space... who knows what he was thinking at that moment, he seemed to be waiting for something to happen... like our girl, he was out of that chaos, isolated from the rest of the world and was for she noticed this, as she noticed the little things like the great observer she was...
She saw him move around called by some boys, she saw him laugh... it was the first time... she saw him talking to them... she had listened to the voices of many who didn't interest her and now that someone interested her, she couldn't hear their voice... then the silence he descended into the room and in front of the audience someone started speaking... a speech that our girl didn't listen to very carefully... he was talking about a project, about music perhaps...
The only thing she could think of was that boy, she knew him but he didn't, she had learned about him from others, he was a new member of the gang he was part of, a master from what she remembered, she had already seen him once or twice. twice but she had never spoken to him out of shyness. Yet seeing him again in another context had had a strange effect on her...she felt something strange inside herself, a sort of curiosity towards that man, an attraction like a magnet, it occupied all her thoughts...she had finally decided to introduce herself to that mysterious boy…
Once the speech was over, the crowd fell back into their chatter, she stood up, determined and directed towards her objective which was still in the same position as before as if that confusion of speech had not existed, as if it had only served her purpose to clarify in her mind...but not in her heart: her heartbeat accelerated dramatically with every step she took towards him, she struggled to breathe but she was determined to go through with it, finally breaking down that wall that kept her away from him..
A deep breath, he turned, noticed her presence and their gaze met... for the first time... It seemed like a honey-coloured sea so sweet that she would have dived into it... he seemed to study her hazel eyes while a splendid smile went spreading across his face. He no longer had any fear, now there was another feeling... a new feeling for her that filled her heart and made her feel safe and strong... Almost at the same time they held out their hand in greeting, she was the one to speak first:
"Nice to meet you, your new student." He immediately replied, not taking his eyes off her: "I can't wait." Those looks of theirs had said so many words that they left their mouths almost empty... their eyes had spoken, telling each other things that we are forbidden to know, it's their secret and they are jealous guardians of it, but we're fine with that...
That little girl who was so shy at the start and then full of audacity to assert herself, to attack her prey even if gently, that was me, that's me... that's how my story began: a handshake and a silence of words, a story made of looks, half-finished sentences and gestures that leave up to interpretation...a mysterious, unusual story...mine...