Creative Writing: Acqua e Sapone

10/1/2018

She’s beautiful, I’ll give you that. The kind of girl you might describe as acqua e sapone. That’s how Italians refer to girl-next-door kind of beauty, soap and water. It’s the kind of beauty that gets on your nerves if you’re like me and can’t bear to leave the house without a perfect jet-black cat’s eye. You always had a thing for blondes anyways, and even though boys might tell you they don’t have a type, they do. All my years of dating have taught me this. My ex-boyfriends are all with girls that look exactly like their first loves which makes me wonder, is love ever lost or are we just on an eternal journey to find a replacement for the one that got away?

We met in high school in small town America, you playing the perfect role of foreign exchange student and I, just one of the many girls that fell for you and your dark hair that would fall over your eyes in calculus, you and your leather jacket and All-Stars and the way you’d ask questions by inflicting the end of your sentences rather than invert the subject, you and your easy drop-dead gorgeous smile. Everyone knew you were leaving after graduation, back to an Italian small town that no one could pronounce and you’d just tell people it was near Milan because it was the only city we knew. It’s pointless, my friends told me, he’ll just break your heart. What do you expect? He’s Italian, that’s what they do. Plus, the first week after becoming official Facebook friends, all the girls in senior year had seen the one in your pictures and by the casual drape of her arm around your neck and the way you looked at her baby blues, it was undeniable she was the girlfriend you’d left behind waiting for you.

Basically we knew how this story would end before it started and I started it anyways by saying yes when you asked me out after your first soccer game. It was a brisk September night under the stadium lights, you had just scored the winning goal and ran straight up to me, sweaty and exuberant and probably full of the adrenaline-induced confidence that you needed to cheat on a girl an ocean away. It was a teenage dream. I just couldn’t say no though, despite my head, and it wasn’t to make everyone jealous or to prove my friends wrong or any of a million reasons, it was just the way you looked at me, as if you had to have me. And so it was. It was autumn afternoons skipping class, the slivers of golden light in your eyes, my cheeks blushed from the cold and from you; then it was Christmas with candy cane kisses (you had never had one before) and I made you wear red flannel shirts and you told me that America felt like home, as you strung rainbow lights around me and I tried to convince myself that you would stay forever. They say that it takes four seasons to truly fall in love with someone, but I fell for you the very first. I wanted this to be a different high school romance, but like all the good ones do, ours ended with a prom night promise and a flight to Italy in the morning that I wasn’t on. I've moved since then, you probably knew that. You always said that town was too small for me but you were wrong, I left because I couldn't escape the memory of you that haunts all my favorite places, I needed new places untouched by you. Actually, I needed a new you because the last time I checked, I saw that you're back with her and sometimes I think maybe you always were.

If you love creative writing collections, make sure to head over to the Store where I have two compilations available:

The History of Love: An Anthology of Short Stories