Special mass release for the novel's launch, 02/20.
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MIA
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He's terrified of how the Campobello will react to it, and so he's hiding it.
He's also dating the 2nd son of the Dell'Acqua, Luigi, since they were 18, in secret. Luigi who is his age, a year older than me and in the same course as him, is his guy best friend, and who is also gay in secret. So, yes, they hopped on our famiglias misconception that we're a love triangle and one of them would end up marrying me for sure. Very funny, when in truth they are the very gay couple and I'm their straight protector.
And though they have absolutely no idea I know that, my sister, Emma, part of the youngest twins of my famiglia, a year older than me and same age as Leo and Luigi, is absolutely one hundred percent a lesbian. My papa suspected it in secret, then we both talked about it in secret, I low key hacked her phone and got the certainty I needed. Not only is she a lesbian, as like Leo, she is secretly dating Rosalia, her girl best friend, since she was 17 and her 18, the 4th daughter and youngest kid of the Ricci, who is also hiding that she's a lesbian. While everyone thinks she would end up with Misha, aka Grigori Mikhail Campobello.
Misha is a nickname for Mikhail, as his mama called him that all the time, it stuck, and now we just call him by it, similar to what happened to me. And he's my sister's best friend, just as I'm his brother's, and he totally knows about her and Rosa's secret and is pretending with them.
Pretty my situation with Leo and Luigi.
So, yes, our famiglias hope that either me and Luigi, or Emma and Misha would be together is totally out of the curve and will never happen. Which is very much amazing to me.
However, there's a detail.
I've been pretty much obsessed with Misha since I was 6 and he was 8, and I still am until this day, it's been 14 years now, as I'm currently 20. Only papa knew, since he caught me talking in my sleep, back when we were living on the US just the two of us. He kept it a secret, but when we were fully alone he would always taunt and provoke me about it, but always add that Misha was an amazing boy and would look good with me, that he would be totally okay with us.
But unfortunately, Misha has no eyes for me. When I'm home he barely looks at me, and only talks when there's a need for it and when everyone is around. The last time he actually talked to me was when I was 10 and he was 12, when they were all together on Christmas playing hide & seek together in my famiglia's villa in Milan, while I was working on what I was going to do to get into MIT, and he busted into my room running and locked the door, choosing that as his hiding spot.
I was using my black unicorn one piece pajama with details in red, that I had kept for Christmas, with my matching black fluffy slippers, my red glasses on which I used for reading, and a pomegranate with strawberry smoothie on my hand. He was in his fancy silk long sleeved black pajamas, the first three buttons of his shirt were unbuttoned, with the Giuseppe Zanotti black slippers on, and his deep honey wavy hair was a hot mess, his ocean blue eyes euphoric.
"Dio Santo, Mia, you scared me! What are you doing here?" He asked.
It took me sometime to answer him because my brain was malfunctioning with my crush in my room, and I my skin burned, "It's my room, Misha." I said.
"Well, that much I know, Mia, but you wasn't supposed to be here. Why aren't you playing with us? Are you reading? Right now?" He chuckled in dismay.
I closed my eyes because the sound of his laughter was the most addicting sound I had ever heard, especially because he hadn't laughed for me like that before that night, when I opened them, his eyes were inspecting my room, "Not reading, I'm planning how to make sure I'll get accepted in all Ivy leagues and in MIT."
And he stared at me as if I was an alien, "You are 10, Mia."
"I know. But as I'm already finishing the highschool period, I just want to make sure I'll go straight to the university I want when I turn 12," putting the pen and the notebook down, I turned to him. "Are you hiding in here?"
He swallowed, "Yes? Is there a problem?"
"None at all," I gave him my best no-teeth smile, and walked to the secret door at the left of the door of my walk-in closet, then I opened it to him. "This will be a better hiding spot for you, Misha. All rooms have secret passages and secret little rooms in it, mama loves that kind of stuff. Only I have access to this, they will not find you in it."
Misha blinked and his pale cheeks reddened, then he ran inside it, passing by me like an agile black Doberman, towering over me by about a head. "Thank you, Mia. Can I use your secret rooms whenever we are playing? No one will come to your room since you're the golden card."
His question made my heart flutter, "Of course, Misha. Use my room all you like. I never play hide & seek because you all don't like how I always catch all of you either way, so, just keep it up. You won't get caught."
And to my utter dismay and melting heart, he kissed my left cheek, "Ugh, you are the absolute best, Mia. Pretend I'm not here, yeah?"
I'm pretty sure I must have turned pathetically strawberry red, "Sure."
Then I closed the hidden door, and later he left after about 28 minutes, without another word. Giving me that unforgettable moment, the best cheek kiss, and making me love him even more. But it was our longest interaction.
10 years have passed since then, and many things changed drastically. And I'm not solely talking about the magical effects of puberty on us. I'm talking about deeper things, traumas that hurt all of us.
Such as my papa's passing away when I had just turned 15, in a bank assault in Boston, which he was taken hostage and killed, right in front of me, since I was there with him. He had divorced mama when I was 9 years old, as they fell out of love but remained friends, and he even began dating Nila Damodaran, an Indian-American 'romantasy' writer, and she was really amazing to me. We cut contact after papa died because she got depression from it and moved back to Indian to be with her famiglia.
I had been emancipated at 14, so I was able to stay in the US, in the place we lived together, me and him and later Nila too, but it was too much. I refused to go back home on the holidays until I finished college at 16, and I also refused to go back for the two summer vacations in the middle, which I spent alone in Amsterdam as I went back to papa's childhood home to handle all his assets as he has instructed me to in his will.
My contact with my famiglia because very horrible in the sixteen months that followed, and I only got back there for a weekend in the end of August to warn them that I was going to comeback to the US to start another course also in MIT. But it was hard to ignore them from then, because almost all my siblings and the kids of the Campobello moved to the US for college, all together as the oldest had taken a year gap to head to college together.