Love in Italy

-35-

-Thursday April 6th-

Today is the start of spring break! Sofia came home on Tuesday and we have been having a ton of fun catching up.

I'm sitting on the couch when I get a call from Anita.

"Hey what's up?" I say, putting the phone to my ear.

"We have a problem." She responds, clearly worried.

"I swear to god if it involves Rafael-"

"No, no no. He didn't do anything. He's actually out right now." Oh, that's right, I forgot he and Matteo went to the park to play soccer. "It's about Sofia"

"What happened? She's literally been home for 2 days."

"Well, apparently she had a really terrible fight with her boyfriend before she left to come home and now... I don't know what happened. She won't tell me. So I'm assuming the worst here and he broke up with her." Anita explains.

"Say no more. I'll call Rafael and tell him to pick some stuff up from the store on his way home and I'll be over with cookies."

"Thank you! I really didn't know who to call since my friends aren't really close with Sofia and none of her old friends are in town."

"It's no problem. I'll be over soon. Bye."

I hang up the call and walk to the kitchen. I pile a bunch of chocolate chip cookies into a container.

"Aunt Stella! I'm going over to Rafael's. I have to help Anita with something!" I call. Good thing today's her day off.

"Okay sweetie, have fun!" She yells back.

"I will." I respond. No idea if that's true or not.

I walk out of the house and close the door behind me. As I'm walking to Rafael's, I decide to call him.

I hold my phone to my ear and wait for him to pick up.

"Hello?"

"Hey Rafael. It's Nat."

"Oh, hey what's up? I'm guessing this is urgent, since you are calling me and not texting me?"

"Yeah, it sort of is. One question: what time are you guys going to be done at the park?" I ask.

"Well, it's 3 right now, so around an hour, maybe 30 minutes? We're getting kinda bored. We've been here since, like, 12:30. Why?"

"Anita just called me. Something happened to Sofia, and she's an emotional wreck. Can you pick up chocolate and gelato from Lori's before you go home?"

"Oh... Yeah, sure. Well, I'm guessing we're going to have to take a rain check on tonight's date, then." He says, forcing a laugh.

"Ha yeah, seems like it. How about tomorrow? I don't have to work till after Easter. I have to bake on Saturday, though."

"Tomorrow works. Now I got to go. I'll see you in an hour."

"Bye."

"Ciao." He says and then hangs up.

I make it to Rafael's house and knock on the door.

"Good, you're here." Anita exclaims, pulling me inside. "Did you call Rafael?"

"Yes, I did. And I brought cookies."

"That's good. We also might want to come up with a plan to stop Rafael from buying a ticket to England and murdering this guy."

"I got that covered." I laugh. "Now let's go see Sofia."

"Sofia, Can I come in?" I ask knocking on her door.