Summer of sixteen: the moment when you believe that you will be friends for life, when you think you just have to believe in yourself to succeed, when being loved back by your crush is the greatest dilemma of your existence, in which a three-minute song and forty seconds can cheer you up.

We were always the same troublemakers.

Rita called 'the loudy', who sang in front of the Festanotte stage hoping to be noticed by the singer, a guy whose lyrics spoke only of parties and drunk and junkies people.

Giorgia 'the seductress', who had a lot of acquaintances to try to attract the attention of her mother, too focused on arranging the wedding with a very wealthy 20-year-old older man, a lot of bad stories and bad nicknames about her were spread. All those stories made her cry every night.

Lucio 'the rainbow salamander', they called him in that way because of his passion for reptiles and the fact that he was gay, whose coming out did not surprise his older sister at all, the only one who took care of him after the death of his parents in that tragic train accident.

And finally there was me, Carolina 'the short', because of my slender and skinny stature: I believed that to be cool and famous the important thing was to have a tough appearance, that aesthetic eccentricity meant having more chance to stand out than the others when you had not had a particularly troubled and dramatic life to speculate on.

But then in the blink of an eye you find yourself leafing through an old photo album and wondering where those dreams have gone, those evenings when we talked about our secrets and how much we hated the world, and above all, wondering where those friends who you loved have gone, being shut up in the house in front of the TV while sadly sipping a glass of vodka, at the end of a day of slavery that you would only like to forget.

**********

Rejected.

It can not be true.

I double-check the billboard hanging in the hall of the school more and more times: there is no doubt, it is really a rejection.

I remember not doing well on the exam, but I was hoping at least for the minimum score.

The truth is that I was too tired to study in the middle of the week of the big fair. Rosadoro celebrates the anniversary of the founding of the city for a whole month, for me, who work at the family pizzeria, it was hell: my part-time work has become full time, that stingy old curmudgeon of my uncle didn't give me an extra penny.

The ringing of the phone distracts me from my thoughts: it is Cinzia, my friend, she also had the results of her exam this morning.

"Cinzia, tell me you went well at least this time, please."

"We have adjacent universities, let's go to the little cafe together, I need a lot of coffee!"

I greet the old English teacher, still busy eating dried fruit from the bag under his arm, heading outside where a group of students animatedly discuss how easy the exam was, making me even more nervous.

At the tip of the road, in the middle of the anonymous crowd, she stands out taking photos with her selfie stick: light pink hair, matching makeup, white jacket sprinkled with color and short skirt, as I remember her from the first day we met.

She waves her hand in my direction and vigorously hugs me.

"Carol, let's take the selfie of sadness together!" she says "selfie of sadness" but on her face there is a big smile. As I know her, I'd say it's a nervous smile.

Cinzia is a very tall girl and besides that she always loves wearing very high heels, together we look like a comic duo. We try to get as close as we can and in less than a minute our photo is already on her social media, commented by hundreds of people.

"Did you pass the exam again with your luck?" she curiously looks at me with her big blue eyes.

"Rejected." I tell her tight-lipped.

Tears almost come to her eyes, she starts to hold me and pat me on the back.

"Stop it, I'm not a baby! Everyone is looking at us... "

And just in that moment, her radiant smile lights up the whole area: "And isn't that what we want? Become famous?" she winks at me.

"Maybe you, not me." I settle my bag as we are about to enter the small cafe, all the employees know and greet us, obviously because of Cinzia's beauty and her sunny personality.

We take our seats and order, then Cinzia squeezes my hands in hers, neat and beautiful. "Carol, do you remember the message you sent me yesterday?"

"Which? I've sent you so many..." I pretend I do not understand.

"The one about your old school friends."

Oh no, I don't want to talk about yesterday's pitiful evening, which will be identical to today's after the rejection.

"You told me you wanted to be famous back then, that you had your own band."

«Band... Let's not exaggerate, there were only two of us, the others didn't play any instruments. But yeah, we had a band and we even gave it a name. Who knows why I started thinking about it yesterday..."

“Maybe because of that reality show about friendship on TV? Anyway, let's get back to the point!"

"Here you are, two cappuccinos, two croissants with whipped cream and hazelnut cream, a vanilla milkshake and cannoli! Enjoy your meal!" the sweet guy smiles at us before going back to his work.

"Here it is, the point! My weak point! Have you seen how handsome Kevin is today? He is wearing a star-shaped earring!" Cinzia become coaxing and blinks, as she usually does when Kevin is involved... or some other good-looking dark-haired guy.

But yes, better take the opportunity to change the subject: "And what about Michele, the guy who checks tickets at the central station?"

"That one? Yes he is cute, but it's not like I can take the train back and forth just to see him for two seconds! But with Kevin it's different... I'm here, I eat, I watch him work, I eat a little more... "

“And you become a whale. Then what will your beloved followers say? "

"That I am always beautiful, obviously!"

She believes so much in her dream and she is committed to it with all her heart and dedication as possible.

Unlike me...

Let's think about something else.

It is heavily raining outside the house, as in my room, Cinzia is crying: she had a fight with her parents, as usual.

Luckily she seems to have run out of energy now, I'm glad she feels safe with me.

The doorbell rings.

"It must be the coffee delivery, I'll be right there." I open the door, a beautiful boy wet by the rain appears in front of me, with deep eyes: I often order something at home from the cafe around the corner of the street, but I've never seen him around. He greets me kindly, I notice that on his finger he wears a particular ring, with a red rose: I have always liked accessories, so I looked at it rather curiously.

"Your ring is really beautiful!" I tell him with sincere interest. "Where did you buy it?" my love for accessories grown in me after all those teenage years trying to become a famous rock star.

The boy holds back a laugh: "I don't remember, I'm sorry."

We say goodbye and as I close the door I notice that the boy raises his eyebrow. Is he referring to me?

"Hurray, the cappuccino arrived!" the flash of the photo taken from Cinzia's cell phone blinds me, immortalizing me with an angry expression. In no time at all, I am viral as a typical Monday morning expression.

"Am I wrong or the number of your followers increased significantly since the last time?"

“Yeah, it seems like a lot of people care about my career! I published a post without going into the details of my private life and I was showered with followers from all over!"

We sit and sip cappuccino, watching the rain falling with ferocity: I can't help but be pleased thinking about the cafe guy under the rain.

"You know you can stop going to college whenever you want, right?" I say taking her hand.

"You also don't have to be a slave to your family pizzeria for two pennies." she shakes my hand back.

"Let's talk about you, you just finished a fight with your parents."

"Exactly, I'm tired of thinking about it! They practically threw me out of the bed screaming... by the way, give me some headache medicine."

I always feel sad seeing her like this, usually she is always energetic and gives me the strength to carry on. But that's what friends do, so I'm going to cheer her up today.

"Why don't we order something else from the cafe?" Just for raising blood sugars and serotonin! The new guy from the cafe is nasty, let's get him wet!"

We laugh and order sandwiches. "Listen, how about some fun with the karaoke?" karaoke is my home's attraction: everyone loves to visit us because of it, although I mostly use it. Once my mother had a party with her friends and sang all night, she said she made a great impression and all her friends wanted to come back soon.

"And if you play the guitar it would be better!" Cinzia smiles at me.

Yeah, the guitar.

My guitar.

Cinzia always tries. "I haven't played it in a long time... "

“Pleaaase, I've never heard you play! Do it for me, I'm very sad!" she tangles around me like a snake.

“Okay, okay, but only for a little while. I put the guitar away when we moved here, it's in the garage. If you give me five minutes, I'll go get it."

"Yes, nice!" Cinzia began to burst out with happiness and impatience from all the pores of her skin.

I take the umbrella and go down to the street. Damn, how much it is raining. I see the guy from the cafe, we look at each other and ignore each other, he rings the intercom and I open the garage.

The old garage is overflowing with building material, probably the remainder from when mom and uncle opened the place. I open all the boxes and the big black garbage bags, full of junk.

The guitar has a hard case and is completely covered in stickers, it should be easy to find.

There is not.

The guitar is not here.

Where did my guitar go?

"No, no, no!" it can't be gone, maybe mom put it in the closet... but in the closet we made the food pantry, I would notice if my treasure ended up in the middle of the jars of pickled artichokes.

Before the anxiety devours me completely, I notice the guy from the cafe coming out the front door and irrationally I call him. "You there! Sorry, maybe I'm an idiot, but... did you see by chance a guitar case here?"

The puzzled boy approaches me, completely wet, taking a quick look around the garage. "You really try any sort of things to flirt with me, huh?"

"I am serious!" I yell at him.

He looks at me dazed and enters the garage, moving boxes here and there, finding nothing.

"There's nothing here."

"It's a hard case, which is usually used for musical instruments! It's big and... "

He silences me suddenly, in his cold, annoyed voice: "I know what it looks like, I'm a musician too." then he approaches me. "If it's that important to you, you shouldn't have thrown it in this crap garage."

"I know that very well!" I start to cry, raising my voice against him. “I had a fight with my guitar and I put it away for a while! Do you ever have a fight with your friends?"

The boy snorts, running a hand over his shaved black hair. "Do you remember where you put it?"

"I put it in sight, because I thought I would get it out after two or three days!"

“Maybe someone moved it. Do you live alone? Who else has access to the garage?"

A flash crosses my brain.

A flash of extreme anger.

I clench my fists, knowing who the culprit of all this is. He is ruining my life.

Surely everyone in the neighborhood heard my screams.

I yelled towards my mother and I did not give her time to say a single word, I spewed on her all the hateful words I have in my mind towards my uncle, his family and towards the ridiculous condition in which we live.

I went into the bedroom, slamming the door so hard it broke the handle, and I started crying.

My mother knocked but I never opened.

After a few hours I decided to go out: I feel guilty towards her, she is a victim of her brother too.

The house is dark, Mom isn't here. I walk towards the garbage to throw away the tissues, but others tissues are piled up, probably my mother's.

I must have really hurt her.

I'm so sorry for her, I shouldn't have attacked her like that. Unfortunately I am short tempered and she, who is always gentle and caring towards others, had the worst as usual.

The fault is all of that idiot of my uncle, the garage is his.

As well as the house, as well as our lives.

The only sin our mother and I committed was accepting "help" from our uncle.

After my parents separated, the house we lived in was put up for sale, my mother invested that money to openi this place where I serve pizzas and various dishes at the tables.

In the meantime he told us that we could live here, in his second home, where we still pay the rent and without even a discount.

A house in which he has the duplicate of the keys, a house where he swoops in without warning every weekend, to check that his granddaughter's monkey, that is, me, hasn't destroyed it: that was how he called me unscrupulous when I was little and he didn't even care that I was listening.

In his little brain he always believed that my passion for music was stuff for junkies, that they drink, take drugs and demolish whatever they have in front of them, an idea that he had when I was fourteen, but which of course applies very well today too.

External relatives, as I define uncles and cousins, always kept me distant because of my lively and direct personality.

If we add the fact that I was quite showy and that I always defended minorities, I always had some enemies in my family.

Yet I become extremely docile over the years, so as not to make my mother fight with my uncle, who after all gave us work and a place to stay.

Now he can forget that I will stay and live here one more day and that I will be his slave in the pizzeria, I will no longer be in the palm of his hand

Mom has always been a bit weak, I'll be the one to wake her up: I'm tired of seeing her with eye bags, being the slave of a man who at sixty can only say about his existence to have worked for twenty-five years with his arms, because this is the only thing he can aspire to do in life. Without a wife and living in his mother's house until fifty, without a single friend to drink with.

I slipped into the street that leads to the pizzeria, today is Monday, closing day, yet the lights are on, the shutter is half open.

Thieves?

From inside I can hear arguing: my mother and uncle's voices.

I slightly bow my head, I am so short I manage to enter: I crouch behind the counter trying to eavesdrop.

"How dare you talk to me like this when I gave you a roof over your head and a place to work?" uncle's fat, stupid voice sounds even more disgusting tonight.

"No, it is me who gave you a place to work after you finished with house arrest!"

House arrest? This is new.

"What an ungrateful sister you are, you couldn't wait to reproach this story, right?" Remember that there is my name on the intercome of the house where you live! "

"And remember that in order to help you I also paid your electricity bills every other month when you were in trouble!" mom bangs her fists on a table. "And that the house where I live, where you make me pay the rent and where my name is not even on the intercom, was registered to both of you!"

"What's wrong with that?" When I needed a job you helped me to open the place, while I let you stay in that house, which, as you said, is not only yours! "

"But you already had a place to stay!" mom keeps banging her fists on the table.

“Then you could have avoided getting a divorce! So you could stay in that house and maybe avoid ruining the pizzeria's table by punching it with the wedding ring that you still insist on wearing on your finger!"

"Fred was very important to me and he is Carolina's father, you have no right to accuse us of not being able to forget him! How could you give away the little girl's guitar without asking? Just because you never liked her... » Mom wipes her tears breathless.

How dare he talk about our family this way, this loser?

"Carolina a little girl? At her age I had years of work behind me, while she barely knows how to bring two dishes to the table and started studying with years of delay... "

Now stop. I got up from hiding and looked at him with the nastiest and most disgusting expression that I can manage: “At my age you had years of work, huh? And what job did you do, rob the supermarkets? A good career, really. "I clapped as loud as I could as his face turned red.

Grunting like a pig, he approached me pointing a finger: «You ugly spoiled brat, how dare you talk to your uncle like that? When I was your age... "

"...Were you in jail at my age? Think about your life before judging others!"

"Carolina, please..." my mother begs me to stay silent.

"No mum, I'm not going to let this troglodyte put shit on my face anymore!" I quit, you do what you want! "

"Carolina, wait..."

“Don't try to persuade me! This idiot stole the guitar that you and dad gave me and threw it away, sold it, only he knows what he did!"

Mom started stammering: "I promise you I'll buy you another one, don't be like that..."

"I don't give a shit about the guitar itself, it was a memory!"

It is the last gift you gave me when we were still together. I know that the memory will always remain in my heart and all the bullshit but I just want to get away from that house, stop doing an underpaid job, always feeling judged by a stupid just because we are unfortunately related... And if I can use the loss of the guitar as an excuse, of course I will!

It was my precious guitar.