"Baby, please open up? Alessia please."

It's been an hour, Alessia sits leaned against the bedroom door, listening to Valentino's light knocking and pleading for her to open up.

"Lessy please." Despite the hour passing by, Valentino knocks with the same amount of effort, without raising his voice.

Alessia is waiting for the tears to stop running so that she won't look like a wreck in front of Valentino and his chubby friend.

"Vale, it's time, you've got to get ready or else we'll miss our flight."

Uccio's unsympathetic words get her up on her feet. Alessia walks over to the closet and flung open the doors. She starts digging until she finds Valenitno's sport bag, within minutes she has topped it up with all of his traveling necessities.

The living room goes quiet as she finally steps out of the bedroom. Valentino rises from the floor where he had been sitting.

"Lessy, please let me..."

"Have a nice trip." She says, tossing Valentino the sport bag. He looks at the bag confused. Alessia goes to pick up Esmeralda from the floor where she had been playing. Ignoring Valentino, she made her way to the balcony, settling down on the concrete, Esmeralda in her lap.

Usually Alessia would be enjoying the marvelous view of the Tuscan landscape, however from the balcony she was listening to the rapid footsteps inside the house, Valentino preparing to go away on his "two to three week" trip.

Eventually Esmerlada falls asleep in her lap, the sun warming her smooth skin.

A light knock on the glass door.

Without turning around she knows it's him.

"Err...I have to go now." He mumbles.

"Bye." she hiss.

"Lessy please, I can't leave knowing..."

"Vale!" Uccio is heard shouting from afar. "We've gotta go!"

"I'll call you when I get to the hotel."

Alessia's heart aches listening to the door slams shut somewhere in the apartment. She carefully moves to the edge of the balcony, Esmeralda still asleep in her lap, from there she watches Valentino and Uccio get into a parked car and drive off.

"Alessia didn't I tell you that this was gonna happen all along, you are not a fucking housewife!" Alessia has to distance the phone from her ear as Alicia's shouting makes it ring painfully.

"If he thinks that you are gonna stay behind raising his child in that little apartment of yours just so he can be out partying with the rich and famous, he is wrong. Alessia, you've been taught better than this, what's the matter with you?"

Alessia sighs, "Still not helping Alicia." she mutters. Alessia continues enduring the hurtful truth spoken by her best friend, to avoid Valentino's incoming phone calls

It's been one week since their fight, she knows his schedule by now. Right about now he should be done for the day returning to his hotel before dinner, this is the time he usually takes to call her, by being on the phone with Alicia she spares the temptation of watching his name pop up on her display.

"So what are you gonna do now?" Alicia asks. A question that doesn't ring as painfully in her ear.

"I dunno, Alicia. For three years I have been staying at home watching the baby, for me to suddenly not be okay with that anymore must have come as a surprise to Valentino. Maybe I shouldn't have reacted the way I did. It's just that he promised me a break so that we could all be together."

"Are you kidding me!" Alicia shouts, making Alessia's ear ring once more. "I'm glad you did what you did, enough is enough. It's time you think about yourself for a change, I know he has been."

"What do you suggest I do?" Alessia whines.

Alicia sighs, "I wish you were in Paris with me, designing cute clothes like we've always dreamed of doing."

"Sometimes I do wonder what it would have been like If I'd accepted my application to La Fab." Alessia looks to Esmeralda with slight guilt, she is watching TV with her big eyes, not knowing what her mother is talking about.

"Alessia" Alicia is heard sighing, "All I know is that you are only 21 years old, you should be happy, getting out more, exploring the world and the opportunities in it.

That night Alessia falls asleep with her friend's words echoing through her head. Esmeralda sleeping beside her, temporarily occupying Valentino's vacant side of the bed.