Teen mode on.
I hate your therapy, I hate being forced to let you read my personal stuff. I hate women's magazine bullshit, I hate fucking writers and directors who make their money off teenage mindjobs and all that crap. Shit, rommel.

Teen mode off.
To please the analyst, who has prescribed me the writing of a daily diary as a therapy, I am about to reduce my life to saccharine junk, gravure swill, pathetic bedside book for sentimental girls, ideal subject for screenwriters of mediocre b movies .
Well, come on Emmanuel, it's your turn.
...
It's seven in the evening on a Wednesday in June. Lying on the bed with the convalescent Pan rolled up around me, I listen to my music and contemplate the handful of flies I find in my hand. This summer parenthesis is like a swamp of quicksand; I scan the opposite bank with water up to my ankles, but I don't know how to move: I'm afraid of sinking with every step. I studied like crazy to please her, I recovered on all fronts, I passed with flying colors and the result is that now we haven't seen each other for weeks. "It's just a matter of waiting for next fall," she said.
In summary, I'm an asshole.
The phone rings, I try not to notice. None of my folks answers.
- Tereeeeesaaaaaaa!
Tonight I have to go out with some friends, including a certain Erika who for some time has been bombarding me with phone calls and calling me with gay nicknames like mouse, little mouse, bullshit like that. She cripples my name with an idiotic diminutive, Manu. I hate diminutives, and then I like my name as it is. I have no desire to pick up the receiver and hear his voice, Hi Manu, what are you doing? I'm focused on an absolutely unpredictable guitar passage that is trying to give some meaning back to my life. I didn't know that the great Tim had such an amazing son, it was an incredible surprise for me to find out. I'm not afraid to go but it goes so sloooooow...
The phone does not stop: I get up, determined to answer or break it.
- Hello.
My tone sounds like "fuck you".
- Emmanuel?
Thirty seconds of silence.
- You are here?
- Hi Antonia.
- Are you busy tonight?
- No, I have nothing special planned.
- Would you like to go to the cinema with me? They are showing The Lion King at Lux.
- Fantastic. When?
- At the first show. But maybe you need to eat something.
- Never mind, I don't eat, I never eat. I mean, not tonight. Where can we meet? 
- Under my house. All right?
- Perfect.
I swallow my tonsils, hang up and dash into the hall. Then I go back to pick up my heart. Maybe I'm too scruffy, I take a look in the mirror: no, that's okay; I run to the door, I suddenly remember Saucepan; I go back to my room, take him by the arm and join my mother who is watching television in the living room. The best defense is offense.
- You don't have to look at all this crap, mom. It's trash, it hurts you. I'm going, bye.
She turns questioningly.
- Where are you going? To Gianluca's party?
- Yes.
- Wasn't it after dinner?
- No, it's half past seven: they've changed the time.
She's a little annoyed: poor mom.
- Couldn't you have warned me in time? I already had dinner prepared. 
I lean down to give her a kiss.
- You are right, sorry.
- And put the dog in the kennel.
- Don't wait up for me: after dinner we'll go to the pub and then to the disco. Please, don't look at that stupid stuff. Hi, don't worry about getting back, Max will drive me home. 
I hear her say something as I run away. 
I arrive early, but she is earlier than me: I already find her at home. She is wearing a turquoise dress with a cream sweater and scarf around her neck, her red hair loose to her shoulders. She doesn't say or do anything when she sees me, as if it were normal to go out together in the evening, alone.
I don't have time to be amazed: I immediately realize that something is wrong. She has livid dark circles, badly hidden by makeup. At least she hasn't slept. My instinct, which always helps me with her, suggests a fraternal attitude: I take her by the arm and we walk towards the car. Of course she drives, I don't have a driving license yet.
I babble non-stop throughout the trip: we haven't seen each other in a while and I have a lot of things to tell her, silly everyday things that I can't wait to share with her. But she's concentrating on driving, as if we were at a rally, and replies in monosyllables: it's clear she doesn't want to make conversation. I'm too happy to resent: all I know is that she wanted to see me again.
The cinema is full of people: we sit in the last rows. I keep talking to myself for a quarter of an hour, then the lights go down and the show starts.
The film is good, but my mind is on her as she stands there with her arms crossed and her eyes fixed on the screen. I'm beginning to seriously wonder why she wanted to see me, since she's acting as if I don't exist. At one point I turn to her with a questioning look: she's trembling a little and her fingers are clenched together; maybe she's ill. I take her hand and whisper to her what's wrong. She stops shaking and rests her head on my shoulder:
- It's nothing, I'm fine.
I put my arm around her shoulders. I postpone everything until later and I prepare to enjoy the most selfish bliss, embracing her in the enveloping darkness of a cinema, as in so many of my dreams. There's air conditioning and her hands are cold: I take them between mine, rubbing them lightly and bringing them close to my mouth to warm them with my breath, like the ox and the donkey in the crib. Suddenly she throws her head back and closes her eyes: I try hard against all evidence to interpret it as a friendly gesture. She whispers "asshole kid" under her breath and brushes her lips against my neck.
From that moment on my memories become confused: I only remember the bitter smell of her hair and the very high temperature of her skin.
Suddenly, as she lifts her right hand to stroke my hair, I see a purplish bruise on her wrist. I take her other hand, uncover her wrist and see an equal sign. Her throat is also mottled with bruises. I abruptly move away from her:
- What does it mean?
She doesn't answer. She wraps her scarf around her neck and pretends to concentrate on the movie.
I enter an area of pneumatic vacuum in which I can no longer think of anything: the images from the film overlap in my mind without me being able to follow anything from the plot, distracted by the heavy beating of my heart. After a few minutes I feel her head lean on my shoulder again, but this time I stay still. She looks for my hand, I turn to look at her: her dark circles have turned purple, they're striking. My heart locks in a vice: I take her hand whispering it's all right, what the fuck am I saying. She has a coughing fit: she says it's the air conditioning, she takes some pills from her purse and swallows them.
After a few minutes, or maybe a few hours, she says to me:
- I need to talk to you.
We get up on the climax of the tear-jerking final scene, amidst the curses of the other spectators. It has started to rain, my legs are shaking. I pray to the God I don't believe in to give me strength.
To this day I don't know how The Lion King ends.
...
She's been driving for an hour and can't decide to stop. She's dazed, defocused, at one point we risk falling off an embankment: I realize that the car is skidding and I manage to straighten the steering wheel just a moment before we roll over into the ditch below. I was going to kill you, she says numbly, as if she wasn't in the car as well. I try to cheer her up, but she repeats several times I was going to kill you and finally adds I would never forgive myself. Then she restarts and concentrates on driving.
I see several signs with increasingly unknown names on them: the last one says Albugnano. I sense that we are no longer in the Turin area: we have ended up in another province. She arrives at a crossroads, puts down the arrow, even if there is no one there, turns around and takes a downhill path. The road has no way out: I gasp when I suddenly see the imposing skeleton of a Romanesque abbey in front of me. She doesn't seem surprised, perhaps because she doesn't notice anything. She parks in the Abbey carpark and applies the handbrake. A small, uncomfortable car parked at night in a deserted square in the rain, with frogs croaking: the situation is typical to the point of misery. I feel a moment of tremendous embarrassment. I turn to look at her: she continues to stare at the steering wheel as if expecting something from it. Finally I find the courage to speak.
- What happened? - I ask her.
He doesn't answer. I insist:
- Does my brother know?
She shakes her head:
- No. I can't talk to him about it.
- He's not listening to you, is he? He never wants to know inconvenient truths.
She signs yes.
- Do you want to try and talk to me about it?
- I cannot.
- How can I help you if you don't tell me anything?
- Try to figure it out for yourself, if you can.
I try, but it's very hard. I swallow and pronounce that name:
- Frédéric?
She is silent: I have hit the mark. A series of increasingly realistic details goes straight to the pit of my stomach. I see the whole scene. I'm really bad.
- He's a bastard.
She wrings her hands in despair.
- It's not him, he's not the problem.
A surge of anger comes over me.
- I fucking know.
- You know what?
- That you liked it. It is not so?
She twitches all over, like an oyster when you splash it on lemon. She trembles, her teeth chatter. I take her hand again so as not to make her feel alone, even if it costs me a tremendous effort. I feel like crying and kicking something. I wish I was away from her so I could feel bad without having to pretend.
- I can't... - she stammers - I can't anymore...
It's so obvious to me:
- Let a man touch you.
She nods her head yes.
- But you can heal.
- I don't think so - she says trembling all over.
- Of course you can. You see? I'm holding your hand.
She seems to relax: she breathes deeper and almost stops shaking. She hints at a pale smile:
- It is true. I don't feel disgust for you.
She turns to look at me: suddenly the alarm siren goes off.
- No, Antonia.
She stares at me with sudden anguish:
- Why not?
- Because I gave you my word, you know.
- Emmanuel, I can't stand pitiful lies from you. Tell me the truth.
I tell her:
- I just can't do it, Antonia. You know I like you very much, I think I proved it to you, but after what happened I just can't take it. I'm sorry, you make me...
- Sick?
- No, not at all.
- So what?
- You make me feel like alternative therapy.
- In what sense?
- Antonia, is it possible that you don't understand? You just want to know if you can do it at least with me. You are using me. Not the best first time, huh.
She leans back against the backrest.
- You are right. I'm sorry, I don't know how I could.
She rummages in her purse with trembling hands; I think she's looking for the keys, which are stuck in the dashboard. I turn them around without speaking, starting the engine. She raises her tear-streaked face:
- Thanks for your attention: I was just looking for the handkerchief.
- Sorry, I thought...
- It doesn't matter, I'll take you home immediately.
She puts it into gear and starts off, but puts it into third instead of first and the car leaps forward: the engine stalls with a hiccup. She starts again wiping his eyes with the back of his trembling left hand; her jaw is clenched and she has been holding her breath for several minutes.
I can't leave her alone in that abyss. My barriers suddenly collapse.
I turn off the engine and blow her nose with my handkerchief. She trembles all over, resisting my touch. I gently hold her hand which rejects mine and I nod my head: don't do that, come on, let me try. Her stiff muscles relax, she starts breathing again: I wrap her in a hug, I start rocking her and we don't talk anymore. We stay like this, doing nothing, for I don't know how long.
The rain is falling with a uniform downpour and the glass of the car is misted up; it's a beautiful moment despite everything. She is very shaken, I have the impression that she doesn't connect: she is still shivering, and not from the cold. Of the two, incredible to say, I'm the more lucid. Suddenly she drops her forehead to my chest with the strange inertia of a rag doll. I take her head in my hands and stare into her eyes.
- What were those pills?
Her gaze flickers to mine.
- Which?
- The ones you got at the cinema. They weren't for the cough, were they?
She doesn't answer. I'm pissed off a lot:
- What is it, you designed an assisted suicide with the scenography of the gothic cathedral in the rain?
- Romanesque, - she stammers - and I could not imagine that it was raining.
- Oh well, Romanesque, Gothic, with or without rain. And you want me as an accomplice? You're crazy. I'll take you to the hospital immediately, I don't have a driving license but I can drive. Move away.
I push her away abruptly and try to take her place, but she holds me back.
- Don't worry: they were just a couple of harmless tranquilizers.
I squeeze her face in my hands and look at her very severely:
- Never do that again, okay? Never!
She nods like a child caught out. I speak to her softly:
- Now relax, you are very tired.
She nods again and rests her forehead on my shoulder.
- I don't know... I don't know if...
- Don't worry, I'll do everything.
I'll do everything, yeah. A few weeks ago nothing would have seemed more natural to me than making love to her in the grass, on the river bank, immersed in the innocence of our foothill Arcadia. I wanted it badly. Now the situation has completely changed, not counting the sacred setting, with that imposing abbey looming menacingly over my paganism, and I don't know if I will live up to my promise. What I know for sure is that I have to try, and to do it I have to recover some of that irony that made my relationship with her so special and adorable.
I try to make the prosaic ritual that follows reassuring. I gently help her to get rid of her clothes. It's not easy for me to get by on my own in this situation: only someone who has made love in a Fiat Uno and is over six feet tall can understand me. I think it could have been worse, a Panda for example. She observes my gestures between fascinated and dazed and absolutely does not cooperate, in fact she looks at me amazed when I recline the seat. It is as if this thing that she herself has provoked suddenly seems impossible to her; she looks like she's watching a strange movie. When I try to get rid of the pants she has a new fit of tears and clings to me, stopping my hand. All right, I tell her, let's do it with jeans on, but I don't think it's going to go very well. She laughs between sobs, you're really stupid, she wraps me around repeating disconnected phrases, tell me nothing happened please I'm ashamed I would like to die and other things like that, I answer her don't be afraid, I'll do whatever you want, she stammers I don't want that you to are doing it necessarily, and if she gets the verbs wrong, it really means she's sick; then I kiss her on the mouth and I bring her hand to feel that no, it's not necessarily, and I don't give a shit about who's been there before, because now I'm here. I stroke her hair until she stops shaking and her breath catches the regular rhythm of the falling rain.
Up to a certain point, instinct suggests to me what my inexperience doesn't allow me to know; then suddenly I have a moment of panic. I fear the inevitable confrontation, I fear making a fool of myself. She notices it right away.
- What's up? - she asks.
- Well, I've never done it - I reply simply.
She strokes my face.
- I know. But don't worry, it will be fine anyway.
I no longer think about anything. She closes her eyes and her fever slowly increases, at a certain point she calls me love but never pronounces my name, I don't even understand if she realizes she is with me, then suddenly she whispers in my ear I want you and it's like an electric shock in the spine. The time has come. I have a moment of panic, then I spread my arms and let myself fall into the void.
A flash of heat suddenly pushes me up, I see her down there on the edge of an incomprehensible terror, I no longer think of myself and I couldn't either because I'm gone, I have disappeared in her, I'm her, I know exactly what is happening to her, I know where to take her and how, a vortex sucks me in, I retrace my whole life and the scream of the light and nine months of sweet nothingness, she can't get out of that apnea of madness she stays clinging to me she says help me, the whirlpool swallows her while I get up, I lift myself off the ground, my sturdy wings carry me higher and higher, I see the abbey bell tower below me and I don't want to let her sink, I have to carry her with me, then finally the take-off, the flight, the vertigo, the tremendous beauty of her face. I count all the stars of the night as I land softly and give her what's left of myself.
She opens her eyes full of tears: you are very good she whispers. But I'm not very good, I'm nothing. I want to see her like this another hundred, another thousand times. I'm sixteen, I can afford to start over right away.
When we look at the clock it is nearly three in the morning; I suddenly remember my mother, everything seems unreal to me.
Around half past three she leaves me in front of the gate of my house. Anxiety began to eat me up and it doesn't stop until she asks me a question I've been waiting for for an hour:
- Do you want to see us again?
I don't know what I tell her, but it must be very funny, because she bursts out laughing.
In my haste I forgot my house keys. I knock on Teresa's bedroom window; she doesn't sleep, she comes to open the door almost immediately. She looks at me reproachfully and tells me to go up the stairs quietly. I give her a kiss on the forehead and go up the steps four at a time.
Life can be wonderful.