|26| Perciatelli-1

|26| - "I missed my old life." - When I woke up to an empty bed, I was almost convinced that I'd dreamt Nathan's surprise arrival the day before. It wasn't until my eyes adjusted to the light streaming in through the windows that I noticed the mug of tea and plate of pastries on my bedside table. Shuffling to sit up against the headboard, I spotted Nathan on my desk chair, flicking through his phone. Fully dressed with damp hair, it appeared his morning had started long before mine. "Morning," I croaked out. He twisted to look across at me and smiled. "Good morning, sleepy head. Nice rest?" "Yeah, think I needed it. Is this for me?" I nodded towards the breakfast. "Yes. I was hoping to cook you something more impressive but that's all I could get hold of so early in the morning." I smiled and broke off the end of a croissant. "It's perfect. Thank you." Nathan helped himself to a pain au chocolat as he dropped his eyes back down to his phone, continuing to scroll as he munched away. "What do you want to do today?" I asked. He swallowed his mouthful before replying. "I'm just looking at train times. I thought we could go to a place that meant a lot to me when I lived out here." "Rome?" I asked, unable to hide the excitement in my voice. Nathan chuckled. "You'd have had to wake up earlier than this to spend just one day in Rome." Rather than disappointing me, though, that piqued my interest further. Most of Nathan's stories about Italy had centred on Rome. Could he be taking me somewhere that we'd not spoken of before? After three years together, there wasn't much left that we didn't know about one another, and each opportunity to learn something new was met with excitement. ❆ Nathan didn't talk much during the ninety-minute train journey. His mind seemed to be elsewhere, and I couldn't help worrying that our argument from the previous night still nagged at him. "You okay?" I asked after twenty minutes had passed without a single word being exchanged between us. He switched his gaze from the window to me and smiled. "Yep. Are you?" I nodded. "Just wondered if you were still upset about last night." He leaned forwards and took my hands in his, squeezing gently. "Everything's great, Bella. I'm just nervous, that's all." Nervous? What did he have to be nervous about? Before I could ask, he ploughed on. "This place meant a lot to me a few years ago. I've never shared it with anyone before, and I'm worried it won't be how I remembered it." "Well, whether it's how you remembered it or not, it's still the same place. That shouldn't take away what it meant to you." Nathan smiled and squeezed my hands again before releasing them and leaning back in his seat, casting his eyes out of the window. From my chair opposite, I also turned my attention to the scenery flying past, until my thoughts wandered down a dangerous path. Surprising me, taking me to somewhere special to him, nerves... "Ours is the next stop," Nathan then said, interrupting my fantasies of him dropping to one knee. "We'll grab a taxi at the station to try to keep the walking to a minimum. As much as you say you won't moan, I don't want you bottling it up instead and secretly hating every second." "If this place is special to you, then I won't be hating every second," I said in an attempt to reassure him. Because hating every second would really ruin the mood for a proposal... The icy January air attacked us as soon as we alighted the train, immediately making me crave the warmth of a taxi. Nathan clasped my hand in his as we left the station and headed for the line of cars. Even as he barked instructions at the driver in rapid Italian, he didn't release his grip, his fingers curled tightly around me. During the car journey, the driver nattered away with Nathan, and I worked hard to follow the conversation, accepting defeat only when the speed became too fast for me to keep up. He'd spent a year in Italy—the same amount of time I'd be here—and yet his fluency far surpassed my own. Maybe I wasn't cut out for this language lark, especially if my January exams were anything to go by. We began to climb higher, the busier main roads replaced by quieter tracks winding around a hill. The car swerved around tight bends as if the driver didn't expect us to meet any oncoming traffic, and my life flashed before my eyes on several occasions before we finally came to a standstill outside a small iron gate. Nathan thanked the driver and paid him—that much I could understand—before we clambered out and met the force of the wind again. "I forgot how breezy it gets up here," Nathan said, taking my hand again. "But it's more sheltered round the other side. Come on." He led me through the gate and along an overgrown path until a small church came into sight. Being so used to Bologna's imposing architecture, the church almost looked understated, as if it didn't feel the need to scream and shout about its impressive façade in order to carry out its role. That made it more endearing, and I knew Jasmine would have loved it. But this was Nathan's special place, and he continued past the church and through another gate at the far side, holding it open long enough for me to slip through afterwards. Leaving the church behind us, we followed the path down a set of weathered stone steps and weaved our way beneath a thick canopy of trees. It was more sheltered here, but my breath still caught in my throat when the trees thinned out to reveal an incredible view of a lake surrounded by mountains, forests and villages. I hadn't been sure what to expect when Nathan had told me about his special place. Perhaps a secluded area of a park only accessible through trespassing, or an undiscovered family-run café that served three customers a day but still kept its doors open out of tradition. Those would have been classic Nathan retreats. This was a whole other kettle of fish. This was jaw-dropping beauty, completely natural but somehow ostentatious at the same time. Maybe it only felt that way because I'd expected something understated like the church—a place that was only special because Nathan had attached significance to it. Yet this was the kind of view that you probably only saw a few times in your life: turquoise waters sparkling as the sunlight bounced off the surface; stretches of mountains topped with a layer of pure white snow; clusters of dark green forests breaking up the small, terracotta-roofed communities that were dotted around the outer edge of the lake. It genuinely looked like something straight out of a travel magazine, but with no editing needed. "The lake is beautiful," Nathan said, "and it's very tranquil down there, but I preferred coming up here and looking at it from this angle instead. You get the full effect that way." I nodded to agree with him, still speechless. From down at the lake's level, maybe you could only see expanses of water spanning far into the horizon. From up here, every edge and every curve was visible.