Sand Castle: Chapter 19

July 2018

"Hey," I said when I opened my eyes and saw Tom lying next to me.

"Good morning!" Tom said with a big smile.

"Good morning! What are you doing?" I asked him, still sleepy.

"I'm enjoying the view."

"Don't you have something better to do?"

"I do, but nothing can be more enjoyable than watching you sleeping. Nina, my sweet Nina. Do you know what day is today?"

"I think it's Saturday. Why? Is something important going to happen today?"

"Stop pretending that you have forgotten. Today is our sixth anniversary. Six years ago, on this day, we met on the beach in Rimini."

"This is a very strange anniversary. In the past six years, we have been together for only one week and two months. You were engaged to another girl, I was engaged to another man..."

"Well, no relationship is perfect," Tom said with laughter.

"In the past six years, we had only pain and suffering."

"You're right, but I still think we should do something special today."

"Tom, for days you're planning what we should do, and you've got me very disappointed."

"Why?"

"Don't you know me at all? I don't want you to take me to a fancy restaurant for dinner. I don't want you to buy me a ridiculously big bouquet of flowers. I don't want you to buy me the finest box of chocolates. I don't want you to buy me an expensive piece of jewelry. I don't want you to take me to an exotic country on a romantic weekend. And I don't want any of the crazy things that come to your mind. All I want is to be with you. When you are next to me, I feel complete, and when I'm with you, I have everything I need. Just let me be in the same room with you, while you're reading a book, or let me listen to you while you're playing on your piano, and I'll be perfectly happy. The time of pain and suffering is over. Finally, we are together. I love you, and you love me. What can be more special than that?"

"All right. I'll cancel everything I had in mind for today, and we'll do only what you say. I have a day off and I'm all yours."

"Then, let's stay at home! Let's make love all day, please sing me your new songs, let's have a pizza for dinner..."

"Done! Only, I'm afraid I'll disappoint you a lot because I already bought you a present," Tom said, and he gave me a box with jewelry.

"A watch!" I said, surprised when I opened the box.

"Every time you'll look at the watch to see the time, I hope you'll think of me."

"I don't need a watch to remind me to think of you because I'm thinking of you all the time. I was looking for this watch with your sister last week. Did she tell you that I liked it?"

"Yes, she did."

"I will never again go into a jewelry shop with Nicole! Everything I'll say to her that I like, you're buying it the same day. Are you paying her well to be your spy?"

"No, she's doing it for free."

"This is not fair, Tom. I don't have money to buy you anything."

"You gave me the most beautiful present someone could give - you gave me all your love. And according to your bank account, you are a millionaire. Everything I have is yours. Remember? That is how we have agreed."

In the past two months, every day was like a Christmas for me and I'm feeling alive again. I'm alive when I'm with Tom, and when I'm lying in his warm embrace for hours without saying a word. He doesn't need to tell me that he loves me. I know he does, and I can see it in his eyes. If we say to each other "I love you" every time we feel the need to say these three words, we'll sound like a pair of parrots who have learned only these words, and they repeat them 24/7.

In one of his emails, Tom promised me that he'd introduce me to his family and friends, and he'd show me his favourite places in New York. He kept his promise. In the past two months, I met his parents and his grandmother, who paid for his vacation in Italy, and I became good friends with his sister Nicole and his brother Christian. I also met his manager, his agent, the people from his record label, his friends, the guys from his former band, and Tom introduced me literally to everyone he knows in New York, including his local salesmen.

Tom's parents and his grandmother are living in our building, a floor below us. Every morning before she goes to work at the restaurant, his mother brings him breakfast, and it was inevitable to meet her the next morning after I moved into his apartment.

"Tom... I'm sorry, I didn't know that you have a company. I made breakfast only for one," Tom's mother said, surprised when she saw me for the first time in his apartment.

"It's fine mom! I can make cornflakes for myself."

His mother began to analyze me while I was sitting on a chair in the kitchen, dressed in Tom's yellow plaid shirt. She looked at Tom, expecting that he'll introduce me to her.

"Nina, this is my mother, Samantha. Mom, this is Nina!"

"Hello! Nice to meet you," I said.

"Hello," his mother said shortly, and I could feel some kind of disappointment in her voice.

"Nina is an old friend from Croatia. We met six years ago, in Italy," Tom added.

"Wait a minute! You are "the" Nina?" his mother asked with excitement.

"No one from my family believes that you are real. They think I wrote all my songs, for my imaginary girlfriend," Tom explained it to me.

"That's not true!" his mother said.

"I showed them your pictures, but the pictures don't prove anything."

"Tom, please bring Nina for lunch at our restaurant today. Will you?"

"Mom, I don't have time! Today I'll be in the studio the whole day."

"Dinner, then?" his mother wasn't giving up.

"I'll come home very late, but thanks for the breakfast mom. I'm sure Nina will enjoy it."

"Nina, you can come without Tom for lunch. Wait, I'll give you the address of our restaurant," Tom's mother said, searching for a pen.

"Mom, please leave her alone."

"Well, Nina has to eat something," his mother said, pointing with her hand at me. "Can't you see how skinny she is?"

"Don't you have to go to work?" Tom asked, a little angry.

"Okay! Okay! I'm going, and I'll leave you alone. I hope I'll see you again very soon, Nina!" his mom said while she was leaving.

"You certainly will. Nina lives here."

"Really?" his mother asked happily.

"Mothers..." Tom said after his mother left.

"I know. They are all the same. My mother treats me like I'm five."

"You are so lucky! My mother thinks I'm still three years old. Have you seen that? Every morning she makes me breakfast, and after she returns home from work, she comes here first to bring me dinner. I have a feeling that I'm still living with my parents. I don't know what I was thinking when I bought this apartment. I made a huge mistake. I'm seriously thinking of selling it and going somewhere far from my family."

"I wasn't expecting to meet your mother so soon. I wasn't properly dressed for our first meeting."

"Well, prepare yourself to meet the rest of my family until the end of the day. They will have no rest until they meet you. Have you noticed how my mother reacted when I told her your name?"

"Yes, I have."

"She thought that I had lost my mind, and I was dating a new girl only because of her first name. But a few moments later, when she realized that you were the one and only Nina in my life, she became herself again."

At that moment, while he was still talking, we heard a knocking on the door, and he became very angry.

"Are you kidding me? My mother is back?" Tom said, and he went to open the door.

This time, it wasn't his mother. It was his sister. I recognized her from the pictures in Tom's apartment.

"Hi! Sorry to bother you... Can I borrow a cup of sugar?" Nicole asked Tom while she was looking at me.

"That line was horrible. You don't need a cup of sugar. We know why you are here. Well, Nicole, this is Nina. Nina, this is my little sister Nicole."

"Hi! Oh my God! You are real! I can't believe it! Can I hug you?" Nicole asked me.

"Yes," I said, and she hugged me.

"I'm so happy because you two are back together. My brother was such a mess when he came back from Italy. He couldn't live without you..."

"Nicky, what are you doing this early in our parent's apartment? Why are you not in college?" Tom asked her.

"I was sleeping at our parents' place because here I can study for my finals in peace," Nicole said while she was not taking her eyes off me.

"Nicky, I'm very busy today, and I'm sorry, but I'll have to ask you to leave. I have to go to work at the studio, but before that, I'm going with Nina to shopping."

"I have a better idea. You go to work, and I'll go with Nina to shopping. Just give me your credit cards."

"You must be joking! If I give you my credit cards, I'll have to declare bankruptcy before lunchtime."

"Did you pick for me that necklace, Tom bought me from Italy?" Nicole asked me.

"Yes."

"You have such a beautiful taste. That necklace is the best present my brother ever gave me," she said, and she hugged me again. "Thank you for helping him! I have a good feeling that we'll be good friends."

Tom was right. The same day after he returned from the studio, his parents, his grandmother, and his brother came to meet me. Nicole came too. Unlike me, Tom is very close with his family and they talk openly about everything. His family already knew about me and the way we met in Italy. They were curious to find out how we ended up back together. We told them what happened the previous day, and I told them my side of the story. Everyone was deeply touched, and his grandmother began to cry.

"Don't cry grandma, they're together now," Nicole said with tears in her eyes.

"I'm crying because I'm happy. These are tears of joy, Nicky," her grandmother explained it to her.

"Thanks for coming back into Tom's life, Nina! We haven't seen him this happy in a long time," Christian said.

"Nina, you are far from your family, but from now on, we are your family, and you can always count on us," Tom's father told me.

Tom's new album is coming out in December, two weeks before Christmas, and he is spending a lot of time in the studio. Tom often takes me with him to work, but that doesn't make the guys from his team happy because sometimes I distract him from his work. I was with him at all the concerts he had this summer, and I was on a set while he was shooting his new video, starring Paula. I finally told her the truth about Tom and me, and she was happy because, thanks to her, we got back together.

I'm also distracting Tom when he is playing his piano, or when he is writing a new song. He always keeps my picture on his piano, but he prefers to have me in his room while he is creating a piece of new music. I don't think that is a smart idea because sometimes he is sitting in front of his piano for hours, with a smile on his face and staring at me, without working.

I never imagined that I could be this happy and loved in my life. With Tom, we have promised each other that we'll never talk and we'll never torture ourselves with the mistakes we made, and the years we've lost. We can't turn back time and start from the beginning, because we have a past, and we have history. But we are together now and that is all that matters. Only this time, if we are wiser, if we've learned our lessons well, and if we are always honest with each other, we will have a chance to write new pages of our story. And this time, our story could have a happy ending.