Dear Diary,
I believe I need to talk about my classmates. Recently, for unknown reasons, I've started to feel the need to narrate some of my life events to someone else and, being a person without many friends in real life, I have decided to share my stories here.
Of course my life is not that interesting, but some people might even find entertainment in my days. I believe I will call this 'The Adventures Of The Classicists', it does suit.
I'd like to think of this as a little book - a sort of place to write down all of the memories and events that I believe are important or funny enough to be remembered even years from now, who knows.
I'll call this one. 'The Sun and The Killer'.
Before we start, keep in mind: I am an Italian teenager who speaks mostly in Italian. I will obviously make mistakes, and I apologize for that. Thank you.
To understand better who are the Classicists you need to know how the Italian's high school system works. In case you don't know, I'll explain it for you, thank me later.
In Italy, school starts in September and ends around the first week of June. Before January of the last year of middle school, each student has to choose where they will be spending the remaining years of their teenage life.
There are countless types of schools and each one offers a different path exploring various subjects more in depth. For example, choosing a Liceo Scientifico Tradizionale means you are going to study Maths and Physics more in depth than in other schools. A Linguistico, on the other hand, will offer you the opportunity to study many different foreign languages.
Well, the Liceo we are going to talk about is a Liceo Classico.
A Liceo Classico offers in depth studies of Ancient Greek and Latin, also known as 'dead languages', and literature. This is also known as one of the 'hardest' schools one could choose to attend. I do think it's important to specify that this is more of a subjective thing — someone who finds actions like cooking difficult may find the Alberghiero harder.
The students who attend a Liceo Classico are called Classicisti, which is translated in English with 'Classicists', hence the name of- well, whatever this is.
Is it wrong to write about my classmates and schoolmates? Yes. Will they ever know about his? Hopefully not. It's not like I will put their actual names of course, but one is never discreet enough. I am bored, I know too much and holidays are almost ending: it's about time I tell someone about... everything.
There are still 16 days before school starts, which means that for further developments I will have to wait, but I can still talk about some things in the meantime.
Now, my school is not much different from any other Italian one. It's public, it's specialized in Italian, Ancient Greek and Latin and it has special classes for people who desire to study Mathematics, Physics and Science more in depth.
I have to admit, the entire building is just... amazing. It has been used as a private school since the 17th century and as a public one since the 19th. It hasn't lost that beautiful 17th century aura yet and every time I step in it does feel like I am the main character of an old book. It has two floors: most classes are on the second one since on the first one there's a colonnade with a fountain placed exactly in the center. The fountain started working last year — we were all convinced it was completely broken, but even if it were, it was fixed.
There are three libraries, two gyms, a room for musical instruments and probably something else that I can't remember now.
You can find every stereotype of student possible here. There are the theatre kids, the jocks, the nerds, the ones we call 'Maranza' — they wear really tight and ugly clothes with a fake chain around their neck and just as ugly belt bags. Also, they have a strange obsession with not pronouncing words correctly and laughing at kids half their age for no reason. There are exceptions: some of them have terrible fashion taste but are actually very nice, some dress beautifully and still laugh at people just because.
It is a nice school. Most of the people you will meet here are cool people.
My class is also, objectively, nice. I do not like everyone, but statistically it's almost impossible to like every single one of your classmates. As far as I know I've been lucky (I have seen the class next to ours and, well, they hate each other). There have been some arguments and problems here and there, but everyone is pretty much civil with one another no matter what.
To understand everything better, I believe I should describe to you how our class works. Why don't we start with the popular ones? I will tell you about an adventure about them, maybe.
The most 'influential' people have changed during the years, but there's always one who somehow is constantly on top: I will call her Sole. Just so you know, it means 'Sun' in Italian. It comes from the Latin sol, solis, which derivates from the Greek σείριος, even though this word actually means 'shiny' and was used by ancient poets to refer to the Sun. Both the Greek word σείριος and the Sanskrit svaryas come from the Vedic root svar-.
How do I start describing Sole?
Sole is the embodiment of sunshine, well, that's the first impression. She is always so positive and apparently happy for no reason, she smiles at everyone, she jokes, she laughs, she is genuinely nice. It's no surprise that out of everyone in the class, she's the one who stands out the most.
She has a bit of a habit of falling in love. It destroys her.
You see, she is a lover. She loves nature, she loves the sea, she loves her friends and her family, she loves whatever she finds even remotely fascinating, even if it's just a piece of paper full of random drawings and scribbles.
However, that's what she is, or better, what she has been until now.
She has loved people, but no one ever loved her the way she did. She's had boyfriends, was it the class clown or her best friend, but no one was ever able to love her like she loved them. She's aware of how much she gives, and knowing that the person she gifts her heart to doesn't want to or can't give back as much is painful. She even starts to resent them at some point, but that never lasts long.
Of course no one else sees it or understands it, not even me, probably because I have never craved that kind of thing from others as much as she did.
She tells me about it, when we're sitting alone behind the school, when we're in the bathroom doing nothing. She tells me how she is sure that it will work out, how this is it, and I tell her that I'm happy for her but she needs to stay realistic, and she just smiles and says "I know this is right. I can feel it, Ambrose."
It's not. It's not right. I know that because she cries on my shoulder every time.
Perhaps I am making this journal to talk about these problems, you know? I don't really have someone I talk to, but people talk to me, and I just know so much that sometimes I feel like I'm being crashed to the ground.
Anyway, Sole.
Sole gets up though, every time. I wipe her tears, she thanks me and she goes 0n being herself. She smiles at everyone, even the ones who hurt her, she does her job as class president, she makes sure everyone is okay and she helps whoever she can.
I have seen her refusing to help someone just once, but this will be for another time.
She has this little journal where she writes everything about her days, and she adores it. She brings it with her wherever she can and if she finds a pretty flower, she takes it and puts it there, in her diary. I read some pages a couple of times (with her permission), but I have never actually read private things. It just felt wrong and, to be completely honest, at the time I didn't even care enough about her to be curious about whatever she had been feeling those days.
I still wouldn't read it, it's too private.
Sole also comes from another country, which I will not name because I am paranoid and I don't want someone that I know to stumble across this and recognize her.
Just know that she misses said country, a lot. She has been living in Italy since she was six years old, but she has never felt at home here. When her relatives come to visit her or when she goes there to spend a couple of weeks with her aunts and uncles, that's when she feels at home.
She has told me more than once "I want to bring the Sole of *country* here, because that person is ME. I'm not me, here. I fear I never will."
I don't know exactly what she feels when she says this. Half of my family comes from a whole 'nother continent, but I have neither visited it nor learned many things about its culture. Part of me envies her for her closeness and knowledge of her country, the other part is happy that I do not experience that kind of feeling, at least for now.
I have been planning to leave Italy after all.
Sole is a good friend. Sometimes she lives more in her own head than in her real world, but we've all been there at least once in our life.
I am pretty sure I was jealous of her. I saw in her a version of me, of a better me, someone I could've become if everything had been just a little bit different.
Now I am happy that I am not her. She lives in the spotlight, in the crowd, she is always moving and doing something and talking with new people and that is not a life I would be able to enjoy. I like to think that one day I will have my fifteen minutes of fame, but I don't think I want more than that for now.
She is great. If you happen to meet her one day, you will gain a new friend. It's safe to say she has helped me to become better than I was. Less bitter, less mean.
It's nice.
Now, our next target. Let's call him Verde.
Verde is simply 'green' in Italian, by the way.
I chose to call him Verde because I was convinced he had green eyes and I had a huge crush on him for like eight months. He actually has blue eyes and I believe is a bit mad.
Verde is the classic clown of the class with family problems, anger management issues and difficulty in talking about his feelings. Also, he often feels like a failure.
He is one of the most beautiful people I have ever met, objectively speaking. He has blonde curly hair, freckles, big blue eyes and he can't see without his round glasses. I am certain that if he weren't as pretty as he is, he would not be as popular in our class.
This boy doesn't care much about the morals and the ethics of society. He is the kind of person who says the most uncomfortable and out of pocket things without even realizing how strange it looks from the point of view of an outsider. For example, he talks about torture methods involving bamboo and some ropes, about his WhatsApp stickers with beheaded people (note: not animated or drawn people, real life people beheaded with blood and everything) and dark humor so dark you doubt that it's still called humor anymore.
Last year, we sat next to each other for about four months. That was enough for me to become one his best friends and to observe him closely.
People don't like sitting near him and I get it, since I've also been there. It can be annoying hearing him sing the same song for fifty minutes straight, and even more annoying hearing the terrible jokes he comes up with instead of following whatever the professor is saying in that moment. Now, because I had this huge crush on him, I laughed at every joke. I listened every time he sang (he actually has a good voice, if he tries). I nodded when he talked about blood and murder and tortures. I agreed when he insulted one of the teachers under his breath for calling him out on his constant talking.
This led him to like me as a person. Not in a romantic way, but in a wow-they-actually-agree-with-me kind of way. He wanted to be my friend because I shared the same interests as him. I didn't.
While I do like topics such as murders, abductions and torture in TV series or movies, I do find it a bit less attractive in real life. I admit that my level of knowledge in many of those areas might lead to people to think I love murder, but while mine is really pure curiosity and interest, his is obsession.
He described to me exactly how he would kill our Maths professor, how he dreamed about running over his mother with his car, how funny it was that the poor squirrel had actually been run over by a dumb driver. See, this is why I feel like he might be a bit mad.
It's interesting talking to him though, but I do not exclude that that may be just a me thing. I noticed during the years that I am way less sensible than the norm to dark topics involving death and similar, and while sometimes it does feel weird, I normally do not have much problems hearing him talk about those things.
Anyway, the amazing thing about conversing with him is how he adds a lot of information about himself without even noticing. He'd talk about this torture method, how he'd use it on his parents — he despises them — because of how they treated him when he was, I don't know, ten: and from there I'd get his school name, his old friends' name, things that happened to him during that time, basically everything he wouldn't talk about if you were to ask him directly. That's why I know so much about him. I'm also positive that he is not aware of how many things he's given away during those months.
The one thing I had to dig deeper to find was everything he felt under the anger.
He was always, constantly angry. Sometimes he would blow up mid-lesson and I would have to take his hands in mine to make sure he didn't do something stupid like throwing scissors at the professor. He would clench his fists so hard that he bruised himself and, if I was holding his hand, me. He would carve insults on the desk with his pen. He would run out of the classroom after throwing his chair at the floor and I would follow him outside to keep an eye on him until he calmed down. Usually, that took about one hour. If it was really bad, he'd go silent for the whole day and I'd speak for him if someone asked something.
Staying next to him for four months taught me four things: one, I did not have a crush on him, I was just touch-starved and he happened to be a naturally affectionate person; two, I now knew about thirty-two different methods of torture and 26 ways to kill with a pen; three, I was an amazing baby-sitter; four, the guy had serious, serious problems at home.
He never told me much about that and I never pushed. When he was having a really bad day, he would just tell me, and if I did not want him to completely shut me out I had to just go on and help him if he asked to.
Other than his obsession for dark topics and his anger management issues, Verde is one loyal friend. He's the kind of person you befriended and remained friends with forever, even if you did not text or talk for months. And he's fun to spend some time with.
You probably already guessed it before, but he is one of the guys Sole dated.
Well, not technically, but they did kiss and make out and go out, just never made it official.
They were in this "situationship" for about five months during the first year. She was infatuated, he wasn't looking for anything serious, and it ended up with her heartbroken and him feeling sorry because he thought she knew.
Personally, I do think he led her on. Maybe he did not even realize it, but he is clever, and while I do believe that now he regrets it, I also believe that he did not care about her during that time. They are friends now, almost best friends.
I felt bad about liking him. He was my friend's ex, and yes, they were done and she once told me "Oh, I don't care if one of my friends gets with him. I don't like him anymore. I just don't know who could put up with him that long" but it still felt like betraying her. Plus I kind of hated everyone during those months except for her so it wasn't really ideal. I am glad nothing happened. He is a good friend, but if anything, he is like a little brother to me. I guess that is because I relate to his family issues and I feel the need to protect him.
No one knows I ever liked him, of course.
Everyone knew something would've happened between those two. Even before they 'got together', there were looks and compliments and physical affection that gave everything away. Verde is naturally attractive, and not just physically. He has this fascinating aura that pulls people in and somehow you found yourself almost craving his attention. For some time, as I already wrote, he also caught my attention. There were so many people in our class crushing over him, both girls and boys, and while he knew he was liked, he was oblivious to the fact that some of his classmates were actively crushing on him. The only one he really seemed to give attention to was Sole. At that time I did not like him and I wasn't really close with her, so I tried to keep my distance. They used to be that couple that kisses constantly during breaks, that is together whenever they can, so disgustingly attached every hour of the day.
The funny thing was that she asked me. I remember her coming to me and going "Do you think that me and Green are too lovey-dovey?" and I, because I was and still am known as the one who is a bit too honest, replied "Yes, you are. You look like you're eating each other's faces."
She laughed and thanked me. She probably thought I was exaggerating on purpose (I wasn't).
They broke up because she asked him if they were officially dating, and he was 'not sure'. They talked again and he told her he was not ready for something serious.
For the following months she did everything she could to impress him while still being delusional and convincing herself that she was slowly getting over him. She wasn't. They were always close, always sitting one next to the other, always hugging and smiling: she had stars in her eyes, but he didn't.
I told her. We were in the bathroom, I was sitting near the window and I said "You'll never get over him if you keep coming back to him, you know that, right?"
She said, "You are right. I know you are, but I can't accept it. What about- Can you do me a favour? If I get too close, just- tell me. I need someone else because I can't do this alone right now".
That's how we became as close as we are now. I would watch her and giving her a look when she was falling into it again. Slowly she got out of it.
I'm pretty sure he likes her now, but it's too late.
There are many details I have left out, but today I was just planning on introducing some people anyway.
There are so many things that happened in the class during the years. Relationships, stalkers, arguments, classic high school drama.
In all of this, I observe from the outside, mostly. I know the people that get involved, so I watch them, talk to them: in the past, to be honest, I even intervened when I considered it necessary. Subtle things that were enough to cause a domino effect and restore the peace.
It sounds a but villainous if I re-read it, but oh well, it is the truth after all.
If you are someone that I know and you're reading this, well, enjoy the ride I guess.
I will go on with stories from the school, and sometimes, if interesting enough, from the outside. There are so many people with so many things to say, I am sure I will find something.
Who knows. Next I will probably go for the rest of the popular kids — the friends of Sole and Verde. I cannot wait to talk about R, but for that I need to introduce almost everyone else first.
I was thinking about the title of this entry. I am not good with these things. The Sun and The Green would be technically the most coherent, but The Sun and The Killer sounds way too good not to use it.
I wish you all a good morning, afternoon, evening, and maybe even goodnight.
- Ambrose