GOLDWING (ing version)

chapter 42

DAMIANO'S POV

Back to the studio, back to writing songs to the sound of Arctic Monkeys, glasses of sparkling over all around. This time, not in our little villa in Rome, but in a giant house in LA: the home of stars, of parties, of music. In Los Angeles, everyone is a star. Where the sunsets are the most beautiful. Where the traffic can stop everyone and everything.

The inspiration for my songs always came from specific situations that happened in my life, or a series of them in a row, in more than 1 song. For example, Le Parole Lontane is the continuation of Torna a Casa. If you Were Sober came about because of Rehab. And now, I had a main theme in my compositions: mourning, the pain of losing someone. Losing little Angel influenced me in things I couldn't even imagine myself. And even though I couldn't see her anymore, I still thought a lot about her, about the little star who would be watching over her mother and father forever. Avoiding writing something about it was inevitable. But he couldn't risk revealing too much about it to the world. It was only a matter of time before someone found out some information and connected the dots. So Thomas, Ethan, Vic and I all created a fable together, about Aidan and Nadia. Our little ones.

Aidan was a computer science student, and Nadia was a medical student. He had always been friends with her since he met her, and they became inseparable, housemates. She was introverted, he was extroverted. We imagined her with light brown hair, light eyes, short stature and her with dark brown hair, blue eyes, tall stature. They were two opposites that complemented each other in their differences. It's no wonder that Aidan's name backwards is also Nadia. After Aidan discovered frightening ghosts from Nadia's past, he fought them together with her, and so they won many battles together. By the time Nadia finished university, he had already been working for 2 years in an insurance company, and then they started to become more absent from each other, more distant. But on the last day of Nadia's first year, Aidan kissed her in front of a window overlooking the mountains at their friend's house in London. From then on, things had never been the same: not only had Nadia started dating another girl, but Aidan couldn't get over her. They continued to live together, but it just wasn't like before. It took 5 years for Nadia to really be able to face her feelings about Aidan, who was almost engaged to another woman. And when she was taking her specialisation in paediatrics, they had an affair, for months. They stopped living with each other because Aidan's girlfriend convinced him to move into a house owned by her rich family. It was 2 years, 2 years of a farce. Until, Nadia got pregnant, against all expectations.

There, she considered aborting, but she didn't want to lose the one who could be one of the reminders that he would always be with her, one way or another. It was with this baby that they rediscovered how to love each other, with a product resulting from how much they loved each other and were vulnerable to each other. Oliver, little Oliver, did not survive. And obviously, they went through a very complicated grieving process. That's how the tracks Aidan and Nadia and Ollie came about. Then If I Were There is Aidan's perspective if he hadn't given up on Nadia, if Oliver had survived. Aidan and Nadia was the 150 page novel that I started writing back in 2020. Right when I was alone in the world locked at home, loving the wrong person. Little did I noticed that as I was writing it the similarities to Vic were getting bigger.

What was our fourth studio album was slowly being prepared, and for now we had pondered releasing the Aidan and Nadia EP, along with If I Were There and Ollie. Now, no one was putting limits on the kind of music we wanted to write, and after much experimentation, we found that the more sentimental sound is one thing that besides us liking it, we're good at it. The album had lots of different types of music: hard rock, indie, soul, alternative. We explored sounds that came from Bossa Nova, like the iconic part of Girl from Ipanema, Desafinado. We started work on a song that so far is 7 minutes long, a creative expression that Ethan and Victoria started in the early hours of the morning before a party. We've never had such a well explored creativity, where everyone has lots of ideas.

In the smallest pocket of the backpack I carried everywhere, I carried a small black box. It was a ring, an engagement ring, which I had ordered from Pandora. It was beautiful, it was a unique piece, made especially for Vic. It had a blue stone the colour of her eyes, another white, with silver details. It was made so that the moment she saw it, she would fall in love with it and put it on her finger and not refuse to take it off. I wanted to marry her, I wanted it very much. With every day that passed, I felt more certain of it, with every minute I spent with her. I don't know how I never realised it earlier. It took almost 5 years for us to find each other, and another 3 to realize how we really felt. And these almost 2 years we've been together seem like an eternity. And I just want it to be so much longer. Having my band mate as my girlfriend was never something I counted on, but I think it's the best thing that ever happened to me.

Thomas found that out when he was rummaging through my bag for cigarettes. I looked into his eyes on the spot and he pretended he hadn't seen anything. Then, when we got home, he found me on the balcony of Leo's room.

"Are you going to ask Vic to marry you?" he starts, grabbing a joint.

"You don't know anything, okay? Also, take that weed away from Leo, he's crazy about it."

"Right..." he concludes. "She's not pregnant, is she?"

"Thomas?" he asks, confused. "Why?"

"She's been in the bathroom a lot lately, very sentimental, like last time, you know?"

"That's impossible Thom, don't listen to the voices in your head."

"She's been talking a lot about Angel too..."

"I know Thomas, I know... Aidan and Nadia really touched her soul," I reflect.

After a while of doing practically nothing, I found Vic, sleeping soundly in my bed. Her skin looked like it was perfectly sunlit. Am I a romantic? I am, I admit it. But I really didn't know how to do propose. I didn't want to shut down a football stadium to do it, but I didn't want it to be in a banal conversation either. It had to be in between. As I looked at her, I thought of countless possibilities. A dinner at a fancy restaurant. A stroll along Venice Beach. A statement in a song. My thoughts are interrupted quickly by a slight pain in my right lower abdomen. The scar pain.

My health was not on its best days. After tonsillitis ruined my vocal cords, the only thing I could do was read. Thomas and Vic would always come to get me out of bed, take me for some air. I needed an intervention to the only instrument that I could dominate because of an congenital defect. Now Vic, who I used to care for, spent her days by my side, helping me get up, changing my dressings. That's what I call love. Love is not just physical attraction, or sex. It's the late afternoon walks, the movie nights, the cuddles on the head, the dinners cooked together, taking care of each other, in sickness or in health. 

"Love, are you there?" she gently asks. We were in the last season of Sex Education for the fourth or fifth time, layed in bed. At that point, I almost knew all dialogues of it.

"Me," I answer.

"Can I ask you something?" she questions, her eyes glowing.

"Of course."

"This is the cheesiest way to do this, but..." she comments, pointing to a sign in the balcony. Sposiamoci, trapani?

That was the moment I felt I could finally breathe.

-

guys!! Firstly, Merry Christmas for those who celebrate it. 

Have you seen this decision coming?

love,

mel.