Cristian's room was immersed in complete darkness, broken only by the orange glow of the streetlamps filtering through the cracks of the shutters.
Cristian was lying on the bed, shirtless, with one arm bent beneath his head and his eyes fixed on the ceiling. The house was silent; in the hallway, the only sound was Cristiano's steady breathing as he slept in the room next door. For the first time in months, Cristian did not have the stuff in his pocket. The mild withdrawal and the emptiness in his chest made his fingers tingle, leaving him with an incredible restless feeling, an electric nervousness that would not let him close his eyes.
On the bedside table, the screen of his phone suddenly lit up.
An unknown number. No message, just an incoming call making the glass vibrate against the wood.
Cristian remained rigid for two seconds, his heart unexpectedly skipping a beat. He grabbed the phone, swiped his finger across the screen and brought it to his ear with the hardest and most detached tone he could manage.
"Hello?"
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line, then a light, soft laugh rang through the receiver with the clarity of a drop of water in an empty room.
"I thought you were going to call me about the field thing," Maia's voice said. "But apparently patience isn't one of your qualities, Frisinghelli."
Cristian sat down on the edge of the bed, making the frame creak. His tough-guy facade cracked instantly, replaced by a strange agitation that made his neck grow warm.
"Maia," he murmured, his voice dropping an octave, less aggressive than usual. "You're the one calling me at one in the morning. Who's the one without patience?"
"Touché," she replied, and from the background noise Cristian guessed that she was on the balcony of her house; he could hear the breath of the night wind and the distant murmur of the city. "I couldn't sleep. And I thought about the blond boy with the motorcycle jacket who left me his number on a crumpled piece of paper before running away."
Cristian let out a small huff through his teeth, smiling in the darkness without meaning to. He ran his free hand through his blond hair.
"I didn't run away. I had things to do."
"Of course, I imagine," Maia teased, her tone filled with that usual, provocative sweetness. "You had things to do with your loneliness and your motorcycle. Or were you just trying to digest everything I told you at the field?"
"Are you always this annoying when you talk to people?" he protested, but there was no anger in his voice. There was only a strange, unfamiliar form of surrender.
"Only with people who hide behind a three-meter wall," she replied softly. "What are you doing right now, Cristian?"
"Looking at the ceiling. Trying not to think."
"And what didn't you want to think about?"
Cristian remained silent for a few seconds. He leaned his back against the cold wall of the room, gripping the phone a little tighter.
"Everything," he admitted in an extremely low voice. "My life. The fact that every time I try to do the right thing, I feel like I'm drowning. And what you told me."
"What affected you the most?" Maia asked, her tone suddenly more curious, almost intimate.
"The fact that you think I'm fragile," Cristian murmured, his voice cracking. "Nobody has ever told me that. Everyone tells me I'm dangerous, that I'm bad, that I'm a show-off. You come along, break my cigarette in half and tell me I'm fragile. Does that seem normal to you?"
Maia giggled softly, a laugh that seemed to caress his chest. "It's normal for someone who knows how to look beyond the surface, Cristian. Someone who is truly bad doesn't ruin his fists out of anger and then go back to play soccer with his little brother beneath the streetlamps."
Cristian froze his breath. "You saw me come back?"
"Of course I saw you," she replied in a whisper. "I stayed and watched you from afar. I saw you laughing with that boy, Giacomo. I saw you teaching Cristiano how to move on the field. You were different, Cristian. You weren't the boy who wanted to break the world just to play the tough guy. You were real. You were beautiful."
At that word — beautiful — Cristian felt a violent shiver run down his spine, starting from his neck and reaching all the way to his fingertips. His cheeks burned in the darkness of the room.
"Don't say bullshit, Maia..." he muttered, trying to defend himself, but his voice came out thin, devoid of any strength.
"I'm not talking bullshit," she said seriously. "Why are you so afraid of someone seeing who you really are?"
"Because who I really am is disgusting," Cristian spat, stripping himself of every defense for the first time in his life. "I don't know how to be happy, Maia. I'm used to breaking everything. Making a mess. Hurting myself so I don't have to feel the emptiness inside me. My mother looks at me and sees a mistake. The world looks at me and sees a reject. I don't know how to be a decent person."
"You learn, Cristian," Maia replied, and from her tone it was clear she was smiling with immense tenderness. "One step at a time. Nobody is born knowing how to do it. But you have something most people don't."
"What?"
"A big heart, hidden beneath tons of garbage that people have thrown onto you. But I saw it."
"And doesn't that scare you?" he asked, pulling his knees against his chest. "Everyone who gets close to me ends up getting hurt."
"No," Maia said, and her voice was firm, clear as fresh water. "You don't scare me, Cristian Frisinghelli. Quite the opposite. The more you talk, the more I understand how special you are."
"You're crazy," he said, but his smile spread across his face, warm, clean, like a boy in love.
"Maybe," she laughed softly. "But tell me something... is the motorcycle still parked outside your house?"
Cristian furrowed his brow, surprised by the question. "Yes. Why?"
"Because the sound of the wind here on the balcony is making me want to go for a ride. And because hearing your voice through a speaker isn't enough for me anymore."
Cristian's heart made a violent leap against his ribcage, beating at a frantic rhythm. The emptiness, the withdrawal, the anger that had tormented him until ten minutes ago suddenly vanished, erased by the image of her blue hair, her flower-shaped earrings and that smile he could no longer get out of his head.
Cristian got out of bed abruptly, putting his shoes on in the darkness with quick, feverish fingers.
"Maia?" he said, short of breath, his voice filled with a pure, visceral desire.
"Tell me."
"I want to see you."
On the other end of the phone, Maia took a small warm breath before answering.
"Me too."