Summer Long

July 3 - "I didn't know what love was." (13)

"Why did her words affect me so much?"

"You still have time."

That sentence she said echoed in my mind like a wave crashing relentlessly on a rock.

What did she really want to tell me?

I nervously looked up, and Bella was standing in front of me with a worried and impatient expression.
"I didn't want to upset you in any way." She said.

I laughed nervously: "What did you want to do, then? No, really, because... why did you say that?"

I could feel the tension ran through her body.
I didn't want to be upset now, but I was.

Bella sighed deeply as she spoke:
"If you'd like to listen to me, you would understand why I feel that way..."

"Shall we go back inside?" She asked.
Then she made a gentle gesture with her head: "Please..."

I saw her take a few steps.
I waited a few seconds ... but I couldn't resist, I got up and I followed her to the sauna, again.

Bella sat down in the same position, only she immediately turned her face to look at me.
I sat down, too.

Bella took a deep breath, as if the words were not leaving her lips.
"I warn you, Ellie, this is not a sauna talk at all... So, if you tell me to stop, just say a word and I will."

It seemed to me that she was in a cold sweat, even though it was suffocatingly hot in that place.

I nodded my head to her.

"It's about my story..."
She began, interwing her hands in a nervous way.

"My parents married in very young age, despite all the economic problems and the bad relations between their respective families..."

Bella looked straight into my eyes with a restless expression:
"They never had a permanent home, they traveled the world in a broken-down roulette."

She stopped for a moment to catch her breath, again.
" They had such an unhealthy life... full of vices - the alcohol, the drugs, the gambling." She laughed, but in a nervous way.

Then she looked at me questioningly and I nodded at her, spurring her to continue her story.

"Are you sure?" She asked.
"Yes, if you are too..." I responded.
She nodded her head slowly.

" Then my mother became pregnant with me and my father.... well... my father always said I was a mistake." These words came out from her lips with difficulty and aversion.

My heart stopped at those words and my throat became dry.
I gently placed my shaking hand on her bare shoulder.

Bella smiled slighty, she was maintaining an almost frightening calm.
As if this story was light years away from her and she was completely estranged with it.

" My mother became completely submissive to him. Oh... believe when I say their normal behavior was based on abusive and manipultation."
Bella clenched her jaw so tight that I could manage to see the veins in her neck pulsing through her pale skin.

At that point I told her to continue if she wanted to, because I would have listened.
She smiled and my heart beat faster.

" Sometimes they even took me with them to clubs... where I was the only child among people who got drunk or even worser..." Bella shuddered, as if she didn't want to remember.

"I was just a child, yet I remember the bad smell of alcohol. That is why I still can't handle it anymore." She continued.

This all makes sense now.
But I wish it didn't... because that means she had suffered a lot.

"I didn't exist for them, I was fading away.
I was an invisible presence - they didn't love me, they didn't care of me."
Her lips trembled as she spoke.

I put my hand in her wrist and squeezed it gently.
I felt like crying now, but Bella smiled slightly at me, even though I saw the pain in her eyes.

"I didn't know what love was."
She stopped abruptly.
"They didn't know either." She added.

My heart tightened. That hit me too hard.
I squeezed her wrist even tighter.

Bella sighed deeply as she looked at our hands, but a moment later, she caught her breath in a calmer way.
Her self-control continued to surprise me.

" Thanks to someone's report, I was saved... social services came and took me out of their custody. I was sent to my grandmother, who before that day didn't even know I existed."
Bella smiled widely, in a much more peaceful and serene way.

But I could sense that she still had something irretrievably broken, inside her heart.

"I never again had relations with my parents." She finally said.

I let that deep silence pervade us, just like when you open the window of a house that has been closed for too long.

"I am... so sorry, Bella. I never thought that..." I whispered to her.

"Nobody thinks that." She replied, smiling.
"I've told this story to very few people."

I swallowed in panic.
Why was I one of these few peolple?
After all, we didn't know each other.

" This is why... I have a bad experience in the matter of weddings." Bella said cryptically.

"Believe me, Ellie, I did not tell you this story to make you worry... or for you to feel sorry for me ." She said decisively.

Bella put her hand in the middle of her chest.
I saw her shiny eyes, she was sincere.
I had no doubt.

I shook my head: "I don't think that at all."

Bella breathed a sigh of relief as her trembling hand rested on mine that was still squeezing her arm.

Then she spoke with those limpid eyes that were mesmerazing me:
"But that doesn't mean at all that all marriages can end up like that. True love exists, despite all of this, and it's a free and pure feeling."

Bella squeezed my hand even more warmly, and in that moment I felt a strong sense of safety and confidence.

My body began to shake, without me being able to do anything about it.

"... I just wanted to tell you that..." I whispered.

Bella languidly looked at me, waiting hopefully for me to continue talking.

Still her hand on mine.
Still my hand on her wrist.

" That ... I can't even ever imagine what you were going through ... you were very strong.
You are incredibly strong and resilient. Despite everything. I just wanted to tell you this."

That wasn't enough to appreciate her strength, but I still didn't have the courage to speak the right words.
Probably because I didn't even have them for myself.

Bella smiled brightly:
" This is thanks to my grandmother, she was the most important person in my life... she filled the house with love."

My eyes filled with tears, but I stubbornly held back the tears and not a single one crossed my face.

"Your grandmother did a great job." I replied, shyly.

Bella moved her hair in an awkward way and her cheeks turned rosy.
Suddendly, I began to break out in a cold sweat in front of her.

I stopped our physical contact first.
My hands were sweaty and I wiped them nervously on my towel.

"Do we want to go? It's starting to get way too hot in here." I said, snapping to my feet and crinkling my red eyes.

Bella understood and nodded immediately.

We walked out of the sauna, our arms slowly touching each other, but neither of us had the courage to speak first.

"Maybe we should go up to our rooms... to take a shower." I said.
"Maybe we should..." She whispered back.

I thought we needed some time alone to clear our thoughts.
I went up to my room but for the first time I didn't want to be alone at all.